


Brothers On A Hotel Bed

by OnWednesdaysWeStudyinPink



Series: Brothers on a Hotel Bed [1]
Category: Lost
Genre: Flash Sideways Verse, LAXverse, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-05 19:47:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4192638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnWednesdaysWeStudyinPink/pseuds/OnWednesdaysWeStudyinPink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Events leading up to episodes 6.06 and 6.11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“On a whole, I don’t have any friends…I’ve lost my trust factor._  
_I believe I have people who think they’re my friends. And I believe_  
_that there are people probably in their heart that are friendly_  
_towards me or are friends to me. But they’re not my friends_  
_because what I learned is that fear is stronger than love. So_  
_soon as somebody scarier comes along, they won’t be my  
_ _friend anymore.”_

_—Tupac Shakur_

*****

Sometimes, he wakes in the middle of the night to Keamy leaving the latrine to come back to bed. It’s the sound of the tank refilling that wakes Mikhail and he’ll turn his head to his right to look at the dark doorway that leads back into the bedroom, the lights from the city creeping around the windows’ curtains to illuminate the angles of the man that stands there. Mikhail always pretends to be asleep—doesn’t want to be caught looking—but he knows he gives himself away when he holds his breath as the other man curls close to him, his head resting on his shoulder. Sometimes Keamy's fingers ghost across his belly before he wraps a strong arm around him and in the dark, Mikhail can feel the triumphant smile Keamy wears—Mikhail doesn't give himself away easily, but this American has always been able to figure him out.

It’s morning that is always the same. He wakes to the dark, to skin against his, whispers that are too insistent, the sound of the day’s first buses outside, a bedroom that is too beige and too hot for 5 AM. Being this drowsy means he can't think straight enough to speak English, just mumbles sleepy Russian, usually requests to be left alone as Keamy slides the bed sheets down and pulls Mikhail’s hard-on out of his boxers. The words of irritation become words of affection as a warm mouth envelopes him and his tone stays the same, muttering them as though he’s cursing or threatening which only makes Keamy chuckle around him.

The ambient bliss of hardly being awake makes Keamy’s mouth overwhelming and he isn’t aware that he’s moaning until he finally chokes out “ _Martin!_ ” which seems to sound just right amid the rustle of bed sheets. Keamy moves back up the bed and before Mikhail can protest at how close he’d been, the other man uses a knee to nudge his thighs open. 

Keamy isn’t someone to be resisted. Mikhail doesn't like the thought of men being with men, but this is far different. There's no flounce or frills, just muscles and calluses as Keamy leans over him, his stubble grating against his neck as he whispers into his ear. His Russian is still dreadful, full of poor pronunciation and an American accent, but Mikhail never criticizes him about it, keeping his opinions to himself only because—of all things—he doesn’t want to insult the other man. 

They are soon a tangle of limbs and the headboard bangs rhythmically against the wall as Mikhail finds his English again, groaning out utter nonsense as his hand grips at the back of Keamy’s neck, fingers noting the hairline in need of a trim. The way Keamy brings his lips to Mikhail’s is hungry, crushing and the feeling of urgency in both of them finally peaks with the American shouting out a curse word and collapsing on top of him. Mikhail finishes between their bodies, his face pressed into the smooth span of skin connecting the shoulder to the neck. The weight of the other man’s spent body on top of his and the feeling of skin slick from sweat beneath his fingertips are welcome and as they catch their breath, a moment of calm settles in him, the only part of the day that will feel this way.

*********

Mikhail isn’t living in Los Angeles so much as he is hiding out. After his unit in the Soviet Army was decommissioned, he’d come to California in hopes of escaping his past. The things he’d done in Afghanistan are no doubt considered war crimes and while he doesn’t feel sorry for anything he’s done, he doesn’t want to be around people who _know_ what he’s done.Los Angeles, the City of Angels, calls to him with a siren’s song of opportunity and he relocates himself to the sun-drenched metropolis, the desert against the coast. He trades fatigues for suits of the same faded, military colours, blending into the dusty heat waves that rise off the pavement and tall concrete buildings. He makes himself invisible, forgettable, a ghost, and this new freedom suits him well.

However, while it is a new town, a new closet of clothing, a new beginning, some things will never change. He’s in the same old business of torture and killing and it’s not so much that he _enjoys_ what he does, he’s simply very good at it and it’s pointless to pretend otherwise. Hired muscle is —not surprisingly—a highly sought after market and he does well working with Brazilian gangsters, his Portuguese improving the more he works with them.He gains a reputation as someone not to be fucked with and at the turn of the millennium, his name gets around to a racketeer named Martin Keamy.Keamy calls upon him from time to time to act as a translator, and in one instance as an evaluator of Soviet firearms before he’s accepted as a regular part of the fold, welcome to act as a liaison between Keamy’s syndicate and other organizations with ‘similar interests’.

As he dresses for the day, Mikhail looks at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t recognise himself sometimes. He is Mikhail and yet he is not. Is this truly the world he belongs in? 

“Swing by the restaurant for lunch,” Keamy says as straightens his suit in the mirror.

Mikhail doesn’t answer and as soon he’s left in the apartment alone, the sun starting to rise.

*********

Keamy stopped thinking of himself as ‘Martin’ ages ago. ‘Martin’ was his childhood name, ‘Keamy’ is what he is called as a man. He also likes the way his surname sounds compared to his given name, though he allows a few people to still call him by it. He is also referred to as a ‘loan shark’, but he likes to think of himself as a ‘non-federal financial supplier’ with the side occupation of ‘acquisition and redistribution specialist’. He has ties across the globe, people who rely on him for money and guns, for specialty services that he is willing to offer for a heavy—but worthwhile—fee.

There is a man who (in turn for not being chopped to bits and thrown into the Pacific) lets him use the restaurant he owns as the headquarters for Keamy’s business, which is something Keamy finds fairly delightful as he has access to the food and kitchen space; during the duller parts of the day he cooks, making up for every shit meal he ever ate in the Marines. He also likes to imagine that this makes him appear to be a better-rounded person, something to offset the tailored suits and Rolex watches. He likes his expensive lifestyle, likes the power and leadership he has here in LA. Fairly young for his line of work, Keamy finds a sense of pride in the business he’s built from the ground up, using it as a way to get him anything he wants.

To his surprise, Mikhail Bakunin is something he wants. He can’t quite figure out why it just feels easier and safer being with the Russian; he’s not used to relying on other people for any feeling of emotional validation, because he thinks of himself as a one-man army. And yet the Russian seems to fit well into his scheme of things. Though there are many similarities between he and the Russian, Mikhail is in many ways his polar opposite. They share a military background and life of crime, but Keamy’s world involves smiling and interacting with people who need what he can provide. Mikhail is withdrawn and rarely speaks, only showing himself when he is needed; Keamy often catches the other man simply standing back and watching. It irks him somewhat, but then again he can also tell that Mikhail has seen and done things that have made him cautious around others, a permanent state of survival mode. He’s also hilariously homophobic, but Keamy can sense that all affection from him is genuine. Mikhail gets who he is, isn’t scared or disturbed with what he’s done and he supposes that its that unique trait that appeals. But then maybe for Mikhail it isn’t about gender, maybe it’s about emotions and trust (which is actually gayer than anything he complains about). 

Keamy gets it, though. 

*********

It had been late at night in the poorly lit restaurant kitchen, that at the time had been closed for renovations. Keamy’d brought some KFC for them to eat, a bucket of chicken with sides of mashed potatoes and coleslaw. It’d been a long day for both of them and the greasy poultry was a welcome meal. They sit at the preparation island, using the plastic sporks to shovel food straight from the Styrofoam containers into their mouths. The only sound is their chewing and when Keamy looks over at him from time to time, Mikhail offers a nod as if to say that the chicken was a brilliant idea.

“You have some gravy,” Keamy says fifteen minutes in, gesturing to his own face to indicate the general vicinity of the food. 

Mikhail’s eyes lock onto his as he brings one of the cheap thin paper napkins up to his cheek, wiping off the offending food then raising his eyebrows as if to ask whether or not everything is all right once more. Keamy nods, peeling crispy skin off a drumstick to eat separately. After a moment and without much thought, he’s leaned over and placed his lips on the Russian’s who appears to be too stunned to do anything in response. Keamy doesn’t have a real reason for kissing the other man, he just feels like it. 

Mikhail had been angry about it of course and had attempted to kill him, until Keamy caught him in a chokehold and made him promise to chill out. Once he was released, Mikhail had stormed out of the restaurant without a word, leaving Keamy to finish his dinner alone.

He doesn’t see him for a week after that; honestly Keamy doesn’t give a fuck either way if Mikhail likes him or not. He tries not to make loyalties to anyone, just the one or two people in his life he’s actually cared about. When they do meet up again, Mikhail pins him up against a wall and punches him hard in the stomach, screaming at him about fairy boys, half of the words in Russian, the other half in broken English. Keamy lets him yell, knowing that the Russian wouldn’t act like this if he wasn’t completely freaked out—Mikhail is a man very in control of his emotions and this kind of reaction gives him away completely. Besides, if he truly didn’t want it, he could have just as easily killed Keamy.

After, the relationship between them is completely different and yet entirely the same. Mikhail makes obvious attempts to make up for the vulnerability he felt from the kiss, yelling at and insulting Keamy on a regular basis, though Keamy hasn’t missed the lingering stares he gets when the Russian thinks he’s not paying attention. At a certain point it reached fifty percent pure hatred and fifty percent ‘something else’ and Keamy knows it’s only a matter of time before the Russian makes a move. This is the calm before the storm and when it finally happens, Keamy is caught off guard—which he suspects was the other man’s intention. It’s late at night and he’s headed home from the restaurant when the Russian pins him against his car door, whispering threats at Keamy that actually freak him out. Mikhail’s shorter than him, something Keamy wasn’t consciously aware of until they’re facing one another and would have dwelled on had the Russian not taken his silence as an opportunity to crush his lips to Keamy’s. Keamy makes a noise of surprise as his eyes widen and Mikhail’s hands shoot out to pin his wrists to the vehicle, obviously thinking that he’ll try to get away.

Mikhail breaks away and once again leaves without another word. Keamy learns the next morning from Omar that the Russian had left town to kill someone which leaves him feeling anxious, unsure what it all meant. Keamy bides his time, never letting on that he gives a shit about the Russian man and before he realises it, Mikhail’s standing at his front door at one in the morning on a Thursday. No words are exchanged because they both know why he’s here. Keamy lets him inside and locks the door once more.

*********

In the morning, Keamy wakes up with aches and sore muscles that he’d forgotten he had; the sun is starting to rise and the Russian is standing at the foot of his bed, buckling his belt, his dress shirt rumpled from lying on the floor all night. Keamy reaches over to the nightstand to find his cellphone to see what time it is, but it’s missing. He sits up abruptly and before he can say anything, the Russian speaks.

“The battery died. It’s charging.” He nods his head in the direction of the kitchen. 

Keamy relaxes back against his pillows and headboard. “Thanks.”

“You missed a phone call.” 

“Probably Omar.” The Russian sits down on the edge of the bed to put his shoes on and Keamy wonders if he’s rushing to get out of here. “Busy schedule?”

“I have things to do this morning,” the man says in a dry tone.

Keamy scratches at his chin. “Doing anything for lunch?”

Mikhail smirks at him and Keamy tosses up his hands. “Not a date, idiot! I have a problem down in Little Tokyo and I could use some help.”

The Russian looks at him out of the corner of his eye while adjusting his shirt collar in the mirror. “What about Omar?”

Keamy shrugs. “He’s eh, not _welcome_ there any more.”

The grin he gives is one he reserves to make others feel uncomfortable, as though he’s in on a joke that will probably result in someone’s death. But it’s never intimidated the Russian before and after looking a final time in the mirror to see if he’s satisfied with his appearance, Mikhail turns to look at him critically. “I don’t speak Japanese.”

Keamy’s grin widens. “I’m not going there to talk.”

Mikhail is quiet a moment longer, studying him as if sussing out any sort of trap that Keamy might be setting up, but he finally gives a nod. “I’ll drive.”

“Meet me down at the restaurant!” Keamy calls out as the Russian leaves the bedroom, leaving his flat.

And like that, they are together, two men who have no one else to turn to but another criminal.

*********


	2. Chapter 2

In the aftermath of their first time together, Mikhail watches a spider cross the ceiling as he lies in his own bed, naked and hot from summer night air; his mind is occupied with thoughts of that idiot back at the restaurant. He grimaces at the phantom pressure of lips on his—it doesn’t seem to matter that he’s rinsed his mouth out five times since arriving back to his flat, he can still feel the kiss there. The thin skin of his lips tingles and he feels his skin prickle, flush. He can’t remember the last time he’d had a relationship that wasn’t more than a girl being brought back to his bed for the night. He isn’t the type to be afforded emotional intimacy with someone—that’s the quickest way to finding trouble and if he wants to stay alive, then he has no room for personal relationships.

He’s sure this will pass—it has to pass!—and then he’ll simply stay away from the American, never think about the fact that they’ve kissed twice and he didn’t do anything to stop him. He chastises himself for seeking Keamy out the evening he’d left town, waiting in the back parking lot behind the restaurant for him to come out. He’d pinned the American against his car door, hissing promises of violence, voicing his hatred towards him. He wasn’t able to keep the emotions centred on anger alone, though—the overwhelming urge to feel the American’s lips against his again could no longer be ignored and he finally gave in. Keamy had made a noise of surprise as his eyes widened and Mikhail’s hands shot out to pin his wrists to the vehicle, assuming the other man was trying to get away. The kiss deepened and Mikhail had realised that he needed to leave before he indulged in the sudden desire to shove his hand down the front of the other man’s trousers. He’d pulled back and broken eye contact as he walked away, leaving the man in silence. 

Business done, he returns to Los Angeles two days after, a Saturday, and now he’s lying in bed, still thinking of the man. So he decides to do something about it—he takes a cab across town to the expensive high-rise that the Keamy lives in, a bottle of wine in his left hand. He sneaks past the doorman and the girl at the front desk, taking the elevator from the second floor to the seventh, knocking on door 748. The American, still dressed in his suit, smirks upon seeing the alcohol and wordlessly invites him in.  

Keamy is just as unrefined as Mikhail expects. From the kitchen cupboard he removes two delicate, _expensive_ glasses and sets them on the counter, turning his attention to digging through counter drawers for a corkscrew.

“These are white wine glasses,” Mikhail points out.

The other man pauses in his search, looking back at him. “What?”

“These are for white wine. I brought red,” Mikhail explains.

Keamy studies the paper-thin glass bowl attached to the stem and gives a non-comital shrugs. “I like the shape of these.”

The American can’t find the corkscrew and lazily uses a butter knife to pop the cork down into the bottle then pours the wine. Mikhail says nothing more on the matter and they head to the living room with their wine; they sit on the couch in silence and in the dark, Mikhail tries not to ask himself if this is a mistake—if it was, he wouldn’t be here, now would he?

Mikhail feels his heart stop when Keamy’s hand rests on his leg, but he relaxes once more when it doesn’t progress. His eyes scan the flat, studying the layout the best he can with the minimal lighting; shelves with antique sculptures and vases, probably from clients and former clients, kept simply to impress people… expensive, huge flat screen on the north wall, the dvr on the coffee table below it blinking a tiny red light…this single couch, the low glass table in front of it with a few scattered magazines and box of tissues…a small, personal gym system by the French doors that open out to a balcony. No real personal effects, nothing that gives away who the man is that lives here. His own flat is the same way.

Their fifth glass in and the alcohol has taken enough effect that it’s led to tentative kissing with the taller man, still wondering if it would be better to back out of this situation and leave Los Angeles all together, but when Keamy’s hand finds its way to the back of his head, pulling him in closer as they kiss, he decides not to worry about the logic of any of this and he isn’t disappointed.

Mikhail awakes the next morning to an empty bed. It takes him a moment to orient himself, that he’s not in his own room, but in Keamy’s. He takes a quick shower and with nothing but his boxers on, wanders into the kitchen where to his surprise Keamy stands at the stove, dressed for the day as he cooks.

“I expected you would have already left,” Keamy says with a casual smile and Mikhail sits down heavily at the kitchen’s marble top island, bracing his arms against the countertop, massaging his temples. “Eggs?”

Mikhail nods. 

Keamy’s smile expands. “Hung over?”

Mikhail nods again, slouching a little more.

Keamy presents him a plate and with surprising politeness, a cloth napkin wrapped around a fork and knife. “Here.”

“What is this?” Mikhail’s brow furrows as he looks down at the runny, yellow and white marbled mess.

“Eggs,” the other man tells him.

“This looks terrible,” he says critically and takes a small bite. “And it tastes awful.”

Keamy is scandalised. “Hey!”

Mikhail pushes the plate away. “You could be a decent cook if you had some discipline.”

The other man stares him down—menacing to anyone but Mikhail. “Then show me the proper way to cook eggs.”

Head still slightly throbbing, Mikhail stands up from the island and goes over to the stove, pulling two eggs out of the carton still sitting on the counter. “How do you want them?”

“Sunny side up,” the American challenges, taking his seat.

Mikhail greases the pan with a slice of butter, cracks the two eggs into the fat, and then covers it with a lid. He feels strangely calm, nearly naked and slightly hungover, cooking for a crimelord who will probably spend the day making people disappear. He realises this is not normal thinking, but before he can ponder the matter further, the eggs are perfectly cooked, the top of the whites steamed to perfection. He slides the eggs onto a plate and sets it on the counter before Keamy.

“There.”

The other man looks very impressed. “These look great.”

Mikhail takes a slice of toast, cut diagonally, and uses one of the corners to break the yolk. Rich yellow spills across the plate.

“I can never cook them right,” Keamy muses as the two begin to eat from the same plate.

This hardly surprises him. “So you just scramble a mess?”

The other man shrugs, mouth full of toast. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to cook.”

“Make time.”

Keamy nods. “I will.” 

*********

Sometimes Mikhail dreams strange things and shares them with Keamy in the morning as he bench presses. The other man acts as his spotter, his fingers feather light in cradling the metal, ready to catch it just in case. (The American always insists that Mikhail should join his gym, but he refuses—a place with so many people would leave him feeling vulnerable and besides, the exercise equipment in the Keamy’s living room works perfectly fine.) Mikhail is breathing hard, his muscle straining and face red as he starts to talk, lifting the heavy weight away from him. 

“Last night I was swimming in the ocean next to a freighter. I had on a snorkeling mask and I was carrying a grenade,” he grunts out.

Keamy smirks, his face upside down. “What the hell were you snorkeling with a grenade for?”

“You aren’t letting me finish!” Mikhail says with a rare laugh that sounds more like a wheeze given the situation. “I kept swimming down the side and when I looked into one of the portholes, there was a little blond man inside the ship. I tapped on the glass and when I had his attention, I pulled the pin.”

That’s some crazy shit.” Keamy’s grin makes him feel embarrassed for talking about something so ridiculous. “Did you blow up?”

“Of course.” He can picture the sudden golden light as the grenade went off. “Some people believe that if you die in your dreams, you die in the real world.”

Keamy shrugs. “I’ve never died in my dreams, so I can’t say either way.”

Mikhail doesn’t say anything about dreaming regularly of his own death, that he’s always surprised when he wakes up…

*********


	3. Chapter 3

Martin comes over to his flat late one evening with a bag of golf clubs over his shoulder. Mikhail barely spares the man a glance as he works on a crossword puzzle from yesterday’s paper; keeping the mind agile is an important part of surviving and he finds the act relaxing after a day of working over people who hold out on money owed.

“Like golf?” Keamy asks cheerfully as Mikhail continues working his crossword puzzle in blue pen.

“No.”

Keamy sets the bag on the kitchen floor. “Got 'em off a guy who owed me money. They're a little used, but still pretty nice. Titanium. Maybe Omar'll want them.”

Keamy takes a mug out of the dish rack and sets it on the floor, selecting one of the golf clubs.

“Fore!” he shouts as he swings the club violently through the air.

It connects with the mug and it shatters into the living room with a bang, Keamy laughing loudly as he walks into the living room to start picking up some of the pieces.

“I liked that mug,” Mikhail comments, a microsecond of mourning passing through him.

“The Snoopy one?”

Mikhail taps the cap of the pen against his lips, pondering eleven down. “No, the one with the cat.”

“Oh, that was the Snoopy one.” Keamy places a few of the larger pieces on the kitchen table where Mikhail sits. “Why do you like the cat one?”

“I had a cat once. Her name was Nadia.”

Mikhail expects Keamy to say something snide, but the words never come. The taller man straddles the chair next to him and crosses his arms across the back.

“You never stuck me as a cat person.”

Mikhail shakes his head, skipping to the next clue. “I'm not. She was simply a good companion.”

They’re quiet again, until the other man offers, “Five across is ‘Williams’.”

Mikhail nods and fills out the small squares with the appropriate letters.

And seventeen down is ‘telltale’.” Keamy gets carried away and begins to find answers for lines that Mikhail hasn’t even looked at yet. “Thirty across is ‘nearsighted’.”

Mikhail reads over the clue and corrects. “No, it isn’t. It’s ‘longsighted’.”

“Oh really?” Keamy challenges, leaning the chair forward on its back legs.

 _“I’m_ longsighted,” Mikhail says as proof.

The American looks curious. “Really?”

“Mmmm.” Mikhail nods his head, filling out thirty across.

Keamy studies his eyes for a moment. “I didn’t know. Don’t you need glasses?”

“I lost them a few months ago and I haven’t bothered replacing them.” Mikhail is quick to reassure the American that he’s not anywhere near blind. “But I do fairly well without them.”

“I’d never thought about you in glasses before,” the other man ponders.

Keamy leans in and they kiss, his eyes closing as their lips connect. These quiet moments alone together don’t seem often enough for Mikhail, but he refuses to seek them out, sure it’s making him weak in the first place. They part, foreheads touching for a moment and then they continue with their previous activities—Keamy cleaning up the shards of mug in the living room and Mikhail working on his crossword puzzle.

*********

One night as they lie in bed, nearly asleep, Mikhail mumbles thickly, “Tell me about Las Vegas.”

Keamy knows that Mikhail isn’t asking about the city, but what it was like to grow up there, so carefully he picks something out that isn’t too revealing. It doesn’t matter that he trusts the Russian, but he treasures his secrets and doesn’t like to part with them to anyone.

His words are casual, but delivered a little slowly which he knows gives away how hesitant he is. “On the really hot days, the lady who lived next door always made us lemonade.”

Mikhail seems satisfied by this, grunting and rolling over. Keamy smiles in the dark, suddenly feeling the urge to say more. Who knew talking could really be cathartic? He moves onto his side, looking at the back of the Russian’s head, the faint blue light from the alarm clock exaggerating just how silver his hair had become. 

“She would put it in a glass pitcher on her back porch,” he continues quietly. “There was a gate between our two houses and we’d bring cups over to get some to drink while we played in the backyard.”

Of course he leaves out the part that it was his aunt’s house and the “we” was he and his two cousins; he’d been nine at the time, sent away from home by his parents…He wonders if Mikhail can see the whole back-story anyway, can read between the lines and see every inch of his past, but the Russian says nothing more on the matter and Keamy figures the small bit of information wasn’t of any importance to him or he really just didn’t care.

When evenings get unbearably hot in Los Angeles, Keamy often discovers a pitcher of freshly made lemonade waiting on the kitchen counter—real lemons, not that powdered shit. And the Russian of course makes it with hot honey and cools it with ice cubes so that Keamy has to keep mixing the glass to keep from drinking straight lemon juice. It’s not lemonade the way it should be made, but he’s become accustomed to the earthy flavour and pulp and starts to thinks it’s too sweet when he gets it in the drive through. He always swears to teach Mikhail the proper way to make lemonade with sugar, but secretly…no, there’s no point in changing something perfectly fine as it is.

*****

Occasionally Keamy dreams of an island. He’s a mercenary and sometimes the Russian is there, though he has an eyepatch over his right eye. He’s fighting the island’s inhabitants, a handful of wimpy scientists and wild-eyed people living in the jungle. There is a thick black cloud on the island that sounds like a taxi cab’s receipt printer and whispers secrets that he can’t quite make out no matter how hard he tries. Some nights he spends an eternity on a freighter and other times he runs through the jungle with a rifle in his hand, his men following close behind, awaiting his orders. He isn’t sure what any of it means, if his subconscious is trying to tell him something (not that he believes in that shit) because it always feels like some crazy form of déjà vu, like he’s trying to remember something that never quite happened.

The dream appears the strongest one evening as he battles the flu. His mind is a jumble of chaotic symbols: the freighter, the smoke, the jungle, the freighter, the smoke, the jungle, the freighter, the smoke, the jungle. It all rushes past him in a blur, over and over until he starts to feel sick, after which he awakes. Gasping, he struggles against bed sheets that stick to his sweat drenched skin, clinging like a funeral shroud. His body shakes, head pounding and joints aching something awful and he turns his head to the side to see Mikhail moving through the bedroom over to his side.

“You were dreaming,” the Russian murmurs as he runs a damp wash cloth across his face.

“The smoke was trying to get us,” he mumbles, still not quite awake, phantom pangs on his stomach from a knife. “I was trying to blow up the boat.”

“Shhh,” Mikhail soothes. “It’s a fever dream.”

“He was stabbing me while the smoke waited…”

“Drink,” the Russian orders firmly as he holds a glass of water to Keamy’s lips. 

He drinks it all, gasping for air when he finishes. He feels completely exhausted and drowsily he begs,

“Don’t let him stab me.”

The other man nods, his fingers comfortingly stroking Keamy’s hand. “No one’s here. You were dreaming.”

Keamy eyes begin to feel heavy as he sinks back against the bed, shivering. “I killed his daughter…”

*********

 


	4. Chapter 4

The Russian is asleep on Keamy’s bed, shirtless so that his bruises and shitty looking tattoos show. It would be so easy to kill him right now, here in his bed. A gun, a knife, even hitting him over the head with something heavy and blunt. Keamy sits up in the dark, pondering things like death when he should really be sleeping; the thoughts are neutral, nothing angry, nothing sadistic. It’s just a simple fact, an admission of power in the moment. This man is completely at his mercy, if Keamy so wished.

He leaves the bed for the kitchen and gets himself a glass of water, drinking it down and noting that the water filter in the fridge should probably be changed soon. Then he wipes the rim off with his shirt hem and fills again. Carrying the glass quietly back into the bedroom, he sets it down on the glass top of the nightstand on the Russian’s side; with a slight afterthought, he places it a bit closer to the edge with the hope that the Russian might accidentally knock it over at some point when he wakes up to go to the kitchen, and then feel some level of guilt for ruining the gesture, forcing the Russian to earn back Keamy’s good graces. Keamy smiles at the thought, admiring his handiwork and then creeps around to the other side of the mattress, slipping under the sheets to join the other man.

In the morning the glass of water is half gone, though it doesn’t bother Keamy in the slightest that his little scheme didn’t fall into place. It wasn’t anything special really, just one more way to keep the Russian under his thumb. In a good mood, Keamy humours him with a kiss, a gesture that brings utter subservience that morning.

*********

When they fight, they _fight_. No prissy, petty, snide comments—just punches, kicks, spitting, and attempted strangulation. It’s always over some bullshit thing, something that normal people don’t fight over in the privacy of their homes. It’s a wonder that they haven’t killed one another yet, but it’s mostly because they want to make up afterwards, which, of course, is just as ugly and violent as they fight. Mikhail always pushes Keamy against the wall, taking him from behind and Keamy always wants him on his hands and knees—Mikhail still has the scars on his knees from the rugburn he received on the runner in front of the coffee table in the living room.

Sadistic creativity runs strong through both of them and Keamy hates that Mikhail used a tight belt around his throat that leaves bruise marks around neck, until Keamy is able to exploit the injury at the local Starbucks, where the barista listens to his story of being ‘mugged’ with sympathy and sneaks a lemon bar to him with his order. Omar keeps his comments to himself as Keamy happily eats the lemon bar while his second in command drives him to a warehouse they’re hiding a large shipment of cocaine in; knowing how homophobic Omar is, he nearly goes into a lengthy description as to how he got the bruises around his neck, that by the end of the night, he’d been screaming from the painful pressure from the hardwood floor on his kneecaps. But then he’d be sharing and he’s never really liked sharing anything with anyone.

And Mikhail sometimes wonders if Keamy doesn't understand foreplay and that fighting is the only way he can get physically close to someone comfortably, but then he realises that he's over analysing someone who he'll never truly know.

*********

Las Vegas is a hot, godless place and Mikhail means that quite literally. For all the churches and chapels in this city, no one here seems to have religion past the bright lights, the cathedrals built to house slot machines and card tables. Their nuns dance against poles wearing g-strings and their clergymen shoot up in the alleyways. Their prayers are bought with the begged, borrowed, and stolen money of the tourists, colourful sacraments called poker chips. Mikhail is here on business, to collect money from one man and to collect the life of another; he doesn't like being in this town at all, but he thinks it's somewhat poetic about the fact Keamy grew up here—a soulless town for a soulless man.

He didn't tell Martin he was coming here because he knows that he'd want to tag along, try to 'show him the city'; regardless, the weekend would end in more dead bodies than necessary. Mikhail does his job and as he drives out of the oasis, he pulls to the side of the road and taking an empty water bottle, he collects some of the sand inside of it. When he reaches LA, it's evening and Keamy is sitting at the kitchen table, muttering to himself as he cleans blood off a few stacks of hundreds with cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide. Mikhail sets the bottle on the table in front of Keamy; he isn't sure if it's a secret taunt or silent gesture giving him the bottle, but he supposes it doesn't really matter.

“Sand,” Keamy declares, shaking it up.

Mikhail makes an agreeing noise, going over to the dish rack by the sink to grab a clean mug for the sweet but cold and somewhat stale coffee still left in the pot. It gets reheated in the microwave and he uses a spoon left on the counter to stir in the cream.

“So?” Keamy asks.

“So what?” Mikhail replies, barely registering that he's picked up the childish retort Keamy so often uses.

“Have fun?”

The first sip of the coffee nearly scalds his tongue, giving him enough time to hide an emotion that might betray where he's been for the past two days. “Work is work.”

Keamy looks slightly disappointed and Mikhail begins to wonder if he knew all along that he'd been in Las Vegas and now won't admit to it. “Just a quick job then?”

“A quick job,” he agrees, blowing on the coffee before trying to drink it again.

Keamy looks at the sand, shakes the bottle again to disturb the fine dust among the gravel and smiles, returning to his work of cleaning his money.

*********

On one occasion do they get too comfortable in front of the hireds. 

Keamy is at the stove working on a curry recipe while Mikhail reads a newspaper. They, along with Keamy’s hired help, are waiting for one of Keamy’s ‘associates’ to be brought over for various vague threats; the man is Portuguese and Keamy wants Mikhail to translate for him, which is fine by him—his day was fairly empty in the first place. Perhaps he’d get the opportunity to work the man over a bit. Keamy’s henchmen are cleaning their guns, three of them playing cards while they sit and wait.

The scent of curry fills the kitchen space and though he is focused on the article regarding the rising crime in Los Angeles, he registers the sound of the stove being turned off and footsteps approaching him. 

“Taste,” Keamy orders and Mikhail opens his mouth as he continues reading the paper. 

Keamy feeds him the forkful of spinach and paneer and Mikhail chews, nodding his approval of the recipe, but Keamy goes back to the stove, muttering to himself about the flavour not being ‘right’ and Mikhail fights back a smirk; Keamy has a terrible habit of fixating on simple, stupid things that don’t really matter and the curry isn’t up to his own high standards. 

It takes Mikhail at least a full thirty seconds to realise the room has become too quiet and he looks up from newspaper to see the other men in the room staring at him and Keamy. His first instinct is to flee the kitchen as fast as he can, but he stays because firstly, leaving would be admitting that he’d done something wrong and second, he didn’t want to leave Keamy on his own. So he eyes every single one of the henchmen silently before returning his attention to his paper. 

This puts him in a somewhat uneasy position around Omar. He can tell Keamy's right hand man is suspicious of him, conflicted of the relationship he has with his boss. Mikhail can see he’s asking himself if it came down to it, would Keamy pick him or Mikhail. Mikhail himself doesn’t have an answer for this—the relationship is like a propane leak slowly filling a room: the potential for volatility and death are certain and inevitable, but that doesn’t mean Mikhail wishes to dwell on it. And spending time thinking about the possible outcome is nothing short of a headache.

*****

The Marines had been an amazing experience for Keamy―there he’d learned the kind of man he was. He didn’t think of himself as a sociopath, merely ‘curious’ as in ‘curious to see what it would be like to kill someone’, ‘curious to see how long a man can last under extreme torture’, ‘curious to see what he is capable of’. They’re personal experiments, the only kind of science he’s ever been interested in. He’s still trying to find if he has limits.

Mikhail fascinates him in way he isn’t interested in doing anything past executions and basic interrogation. It’s cold and never personal, just business. There’s always a level of efficiency and no unnecessary cruelty, practically bureaucratic in its delivery. 

Mikhail probably smashed bugs as a child―Keamy liked to tear their legs and wings off.

“Why did you leave the Marines?” The Russian asks him one evening as they sit on the couch together and drink beers while watching a documentary on ‘Nam.

Keamy smirks, not taking his eyes off the television. “Not for what you think.”

The Russian stares at him expectantly and after taking an overly long drink of beer, Keamy says, I was discharged because the psychologist on base said I showed ‘tendencies unbecoming an officer’.”

This seems to puzzle the Russian. “You were insubordinate?”

Keamy snorts in disgust. “She said I was a fucking psychopath. Like she fucking knows anything. In Russia, I’d be on the fast track to becoming a five star general.”

Now it’s the Russian’s turn to snort in disgust. “In Russia, you would have been taken out to the Siberian wastelands and shot for being such a smartass.”

Keamy smiles and raises his bottle back to his mouth. “Rather be a smartass than a dumbass, my friend.”

*********

Sometimes Keamy says racially and culturally insensitive things just to annoy people. Omar is his favourite to bother because he always takes the bait. He makes jabs about Arabs and also about his height, combining jokes involving camels and turbans. Omar always hotly protests what Keamy says, trying to point of the factual errors of Keamy’s statements, which somehow only makes the matter worse, giving Keamy more ammunition until Omar is forced to storm out as Keamy lets out gales of laughter. He doesn’t actually believe the crap he’s saying, it’s just shit he heard in the Marines and from others in his line of work, and it keeps anyone from thinking he could ever possibly give a crap about anyone other than himself. 

“You're Russian—you play chess right? That's like genetically built in to your kind, isn't it?” Keamy asks at the table, straddling a chair close to wear the Russian is sitting.

It was perhaps a weaker jab than he’d start with usually, but he knows he can build it up into something better.

The Russian continues working on his crossword puzzle, reading glasses neatly perched halfway down his nose. “Did you want to play a game?”

“No.”

“Then shut up.”

Keamy tries again. “Chess bores me.”

“You aren’t patient enough. That is why you get bored and lose.”

“I don’t lose.”

“If you’re bored, you lose.”

Keamy stands from the table, now bored with _this_ game. “I could win if it were a game worth playing.”

*****

“Why do you let him come around?” Omar asks Keamy one afternoon as they watch the Russian pull into the back lot behind the restaurant. 

“What? Are you jealous?” he smirks. “What a fag.”

“You’re the one who’s the fucking faggot, Martin!” Omar yells, masculinity challenged. 

Keamy gives him an eerie leer, knowing how it unsettles him. “You had a chance for first dibs, baby―now shut the fuck up.”

Omar’s nostrils flare and he storms back into the depths of the kitchen, gathering up his his pager and burner phone from the prep island. Keamy smirks and chuckles to himself, satisfied as Omar begins to mutter to himself in annoyance; the Russian enters the room and ever keen to danger, hesitates as he looks between them, obviously wondering if he should leave. 

“Everything all right?”

“He’s just being a jealous bitch, aren’t you, Omar?” Keamy taunts.

The Russian glances between them again and then movesto retrieve a glass from the clean dishware stacked on the open shelves along the wall. Keamy feels a bizarre sense of pride that he has the Russian comfortable enough around him that he treats the kitchen as if it were his own. Hell, sometimes he still hesitates in the apartment they share in Keamy’s in a particularly domineering mood. 

“If you knew he wanted the golf clubs, you should have just given them to him,” the Russian says.

“I _gave_ him the clubs,” Keamy replies, knowing how much Omar had hated being the second choice to receive them.

The Russian looks confused, but says nothing more, which irks Keamy somewhat, wanting a reason to humiliate Omar further.

“There’s a shipment of machine guns coming into the pier this evening,” the Russian informs him, pulling a container of orange juice out of the walk in fridge. “I didn’t hear your name tied to it. I thought you ought to know.”

Keamy hates hearing that others are trying to edge into his business and turns to his second. “Omar, maybe you should―“

“I’ll take two of the men,” Omar says walking away, his tone dark and filled with thinly veiled rage. 

“Keep me informed,” Keamy says, with false cheerfulness as he watches him leave to the other man walk out to the parking lot. Once he’s out of hearing range, he turns back to the Russian, who’s poured the orange juice into a glass. “He doesn’t like you.”

“I know.”

“He doesn’t like that I’m fucking you.” Quickly Keamy clarifies, “He doesn’t want to be fucked―he’s just jealous my attention is on you.”

Mikhail doesn't appear interested in the conversation. “I have business to take care of downtown.”

The Russian finishes drinking the orange juice and places the empty glass into the deep stainless steel sink. He walks to the door and Keamy follows, calling after him, 

“No kiss goodbye?” 

He’s about to add, _‘you might not see me again, and then how would you feel?’_ when the Russian comes over to him and murmurs,

“You’re a real _shit_ , Martin.”

Which sounds absolutely hilarious with an accent.

Keamy is surprised at the quick and amusingly irritated kiss he gets before the Russian turns back for his car. 

“Later,” he calls out towards the retreating figure.

He licks his lips, tasting the orange juice.

He pretends not to notice Omar still lurking by his car, watching them with narrowed eyes. 

*********

Something many Los Angeles residents didn’t know about their beloved city was that its host to many high ranking government officials from South Vietnam―generals, presidents, politicians. Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam, owned a liquor store in Westminister until 2004 when he finally returned to Vietnam. 

Mikhail gravitates to these exiles, feeling as powerful and dangerous and foreign in this wonderland of excess and xenophobia. Vietnamese is one of his favourite languages, having distinct classes and dialects that remind him of home. His words are always exceptionally polite and formal, respectful of the people he has come to negotiate with. Negotiations go very, very well, which Mikhail attributes his understanding of others’ customs.  

He brings Martin along. _‘Martin’_ and not _‘Keamy’_ —because today he’s feeling very affectionate that the man is on his best behaviour and isn’t acting like a despicable sociopath—and Mikhail even has him in a tie today, which isn’t so much attractive as it is nice, and once a deal is reached for providing armed escorts at the shipping containers on the docks, Mikhail and Martin exit the building out onto the streets of the city. 

“I am fucking starving. Did you notice any Burger Kings nearby?” the American asks with all the loud crudeness hiscountrymen have. 

“We’re eating local,” Mikhail informs him, knowing exactly where to go.

There is a small coffee shop down the corner that sells bánh mì sandwiches, real street food style that the average American probably wouldn’t enjoy. He orders in Vietnamese, familiar with the establishment already, and two plastic bottles of Coca-Cola. 

As they walk out of the coffee shop, he asks Martin, “Chicken or shrimp?”

“Shrimp,” and that’s what he hands his companion. 

There are large cement planters lining the sidewalk and Martin sits down on the edge of one, tearing into the paper and foil to get to his food.

“This is pretty good,” he says with a mouthful.

Mikhail just nods his head as he chews, savouring the meal he’d preferred over fast food; he opened his bottle of Coca-Cola and took a long drink before sitting it down on the planter rim next to him. 

“We should come here again. Get more cheap sandwiches,” the American suggests, wiping a bit of the mayonnaise sauce from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, sucking it off quickly. 

“Bánh mì,” Mikhail corrects, though he knows the other man really doesn’t care about the name and will probably continue to mispronounce the name just to annoy him. 

“Do you like them?” Martin asks curiously between bites. “I could learn to make them at the restaurant.”

“Or we could keep coming back here,” Mikhail says before he really sees the gesture for what it is. 

“That would be good, too.”

Mikhail studies Martin’s face and once he’s swallowed his food, he adds quietly, “Though it wouldn’t hurt for you to learn.”

The other man glances at him, studying his expression and when he sees that Mikhail isn’t fucking with him, he gives a small humoured snort, turning his attention back to the cars passing by and his lunch. 

*****


	5. Chapter 5

Only twice have they gotten caught in tight spot. Once they’d been set up by someone trying to sell Keamy guns and the other time was by an undercover police officer. Keamy felt that Mikhail was a better partner to have when fighting, as Omar preferred bullets, which didn’t really help when caught weaponless. Keamy and Mikhail could also take quite a bit of abuse, Keamy getting a length of pipe to the side of his face and Mikhail receiving the business end of a baseball bat to his kidneys. After a bit more scuffling, Keamy and Mikhail had carried the undercover and his informant to the end of the dock and threw their bodies into the ocean. That night had left Mikhail pissing blood for a week and Keamy had lost one of his back molars, but he was upbeat about the situation―anything that didn’t kill them was a good day in his books.

Keamy considers dragging the Russian around with him to any situation that might not turn out well, but Mikhail refuses, saying that was what he had henchmen for and Keamy agrees he has a point, but insists that some days he’s certain that nothing could kill Mikhail no matter the circumstance, which Mikhail says is foolish.

“No man is invincible,” the Russian says as he washes the cat mug he’s fond of. “It all depends on skill and to a lesser extent luck.”

Keamy limps over to him and rests his cheek on the back of the Russian’s head; his hair is washed and soft, a bit longer than usual and he bites back any suggestions that the other man consider a hair cut. He enjoys the few extra millimeters and thinks it might be nice to have a little more to grip onto when he’s holding the man’s head down as he sucks him off. 

The Russian holds still, but he’s not tense as Keamy presses his body against his back. They’re alive and Keamy closes his eyes, celebrating that small triumph. They are predators at the top of the food chain and Keamy may be a loner, but sees the power of hunting in a pack. Or at least in a pair.

*****

“What are you making?” The Russian asks as he stops by to pick up a money transfer.

“Hamburger with ground glass. There’s a stray dog that keeps coming around and shitting by the back door. I’m tired of people tracking it in,” Keamy explains, mixing the raw meat in a bowl. 

For the first time, Mikhail gives him a look of pure distain. “Animal cruelty is the lowest form of sin. It shows an absolute lack of self discipline. Animals don’t realise they’re being a nuisance.” His lip curls slightly, wanting to sneer. “It’s posing no threat to your operation—simply scare it off.”

Keamy is insulted that the Russian would think so little of him.“Sure thing, Ghandi. Any suggestions?” 

“Use your head. It’s just another chess game.”

Keamy glares hatefully after the Russian, who leaves without any sort of goodbye and he ignores Omar, who watches to see what he’ll do. There’s an empty jar in the trash that had contained a very large amount of thick cream sauce and using the mixing spoon, Keamy stuffs the hamburger angrily into the jar and screws on the lid.

The jar ends up in the dumpster. 

*****

There is depth to Martin’s eyes, but definitely no recognisable human emotions. Mikhail is certain that if he were to look inside his mind, he would see an alien landscape. In bed, a little past three, Mikhail stares into Martin’s eyes, trying to understand.

Martin’s voice is barely a whisper. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.” His exhales softly. “I am just thinking.”

“About what?”

“About our differences.”

“We have many,” Martin says simply. 

“Yes.” Mikhail reaches up and traces his fingers along the side of Martin’s face.

*****

The smell of sunscreen makes Keamy think of Las Vegas, a nostalgia of putting the thick white cream over his face and the back of his neck every morning to keep from burning up over the day. It’s part of his morning ritual still, as the Los Angeles sun can be just as unforgiving. 

This particular morning he can hear the Russian stirring in his bed, the sheets shifting and pulling on the mattress. Keamy brings his hands to rest on the edge of the bathroom counter, staring into his own eyes with the mirror above the sink. 

There is a strange memory of being in a beach that leads into a jungle, the morning sun already hot and the air muggy. He’s holding a rifle in his hands, staring into the trees and looking for something that he can sense is watching him, but there is nothing there.

Maybe it’s a dream that he keeps having. 

*****

 


	6. Chapter 6

Love and sex have never meshed for him. They just never have. He can never understand the scenes in the movies where sex brought two people closer together, thinks it’s weird and too hopeful. It’s simply something to pass the time or to alleviate the ‘itch’ of arousal or just to dominate someone who’s looking for affection. Keamy thinks of human bodies in a clinical way—there is little arousing that he actually likes. Tits are just tits, and dick is just dick, nothing exciting to see here, folks. He usually gets hard at the thought of power and control, and he doesn’t need another person for that. Most of the time he gets off to fantasies of simply holding a gun—just the thought of his fingers around metal that slowly warms to the touch, of the smell of the air had when it was fired, of the weight and solidness in his palm. His time in the Marines had given him access to weapons that still made his mouth go dry at the potential destruction he could cause. 

Sex with Mikhail is a result of two things: firstly, the Russian understands how to get his body to respond, and second, there is always power trade off between them—Mikhail is just as dangerous as he is and to see him doing whatever Keamy wants borders on overwhelming. He wants Mikhail to stay silent as he fucks him into the mattress, he wants Mikhail to hold a loaded gun to Keamy’s temple as Keamy gives him a blowjob. 

Keamy decides that the Russian is the only one in their pair that actually feels desire and love. He is only capable of lust and want. Maybe there is something wrong with him. A psychopath. He feels nothing, but a thrill when Mikhail pins him against the wall in the shower and brutally fucks him against the tile, Keamy laughing as he closes his eyes against the hot shower water running down his face. The Russian manhandles him violently onto the floor—the side of Keamy’s face against the metal grate of the drain where the water is pooling and almost filling his open mouth as he continues to laugh, his ass in the air and knees on the hard tiles. He knows he’ll have a hard time walking today due to the pressure on his kneecaps and imagines the Russian half-drowning him here. It takes a bit for the Russian to finally blow his load and to his surprise, but also to his relief, the other man doesn’t offer any tenderness. He’s allowed to roll over onto his side and panting, he shields his eyes from the falling shower water and lets out a small laugh. He looks up at the Russian, who’s standing over him, washing his half hard dick; Keamy grins at him unable to think of anything funny that makes any sense.  

Mikhail smirks and leaves him at the bottom of the shower, still laughing. 

*****

Mikhail lies in bed, silent and pondering a dream as Martin sleeps beside him. He’d felt an overwhelming urge to rub the skin between Martin’s shoulder blades and so at the moment his fingers travel over the smooth expanse of skin. The top of the neck down to the bottom of his ribs and then back up again, soothing in its repetition. His eyelids are heavy, so he closes them, revealing in the feeling of Keamy beneath his hand. When he opens his eye and sees he’s in a bedroom that is his, but one that seems to catch him off-guard for a moment. There is a slender black skinned woman lying on her stomach, head turned towards him. Beatrice has a content smile on her face and he returns the look. 

“You’re back,” Bea says.

His fingers continue stroking the skin between her shoulder blades, just the way she likes for him to do. “Back? I’ve been in bed with you the whole time.”

“Yes, but you were gone.” She looks at him with all the beautiful serene calmness he loves. “I’m not there with you, am I? Because time keeps me here…”

“What are you talking about?” He frowns and places the back of his hand on her forehead. “Do you have a fever?”

She speaks as though she hasn’t heard a word he’s said. “I miss you so much when you’re there.”

“Beatrice, what are you talking about?”

“Jacob told me…he told me that in the end, our paths are separate.”

Mikhail sits up at this, propping himself up on an elbow. “He told you that? What is my path, then?”

She shakes her head apologetically. “He said it would be cheating for me to tell you.”

He doesn’t want her to get in trouble and asks softly, “Are you sure you should even tell me this?”

“I don’t know.” She doesn’t look entirely troubled, but there are still small stress-caused wrinkles around her eyes. “I just…when I see you’re there…I miss you, then.”

He doesn’t like the thought of leaving her for any reason. “I don’t want to go anywhere without you.”

“Jacob told me that the only way we get there is if we can learn to forgive ourselves. If we can love ourselves as much as we love another, and vice versa.”

His hand begins to rub her back again. “I love you, so I should be fine, right?”

“But will you love yourself by the time of your death?” She shifts slightly beneath his touch. “Go back and wake up.”

“What?” he asks in confusion. 

“Wake up.” She places a finger to his lips to silence him. “Wake up. Wake up.”

Mikhail blinks a few times, one eye opening into two and finds himself here again, in bed with the American. He stares at the other man, trying to grasp onto the dream as bits and pieces slip away. Something important, about what had been said about him, what he had to do. Under his fingertips, muscles shift and move, drawing his attention back to the man in bed with him.

“Why’d you stop?” Martin murmurs, his eyes fluttering open.

Mikhail smiles, the dream now entirely forgotten. “I am sorry. I drifted off for a moment.”

He gives a soft kiss to Martin’s lips and then continues stroking his fingers back and forth. 

*****

It’s nearly midnight and they’re driving on the freeway in a yellow Ferari Keamy’s acquired from someone they crippled with a few swings of a crowbar to a kneecap. Keamy has to admit that despite his usual lack of interest in people, Mikhail looks rather handsome tonight. They have every intention of getting dinner somewhere nice—Omar will be joining them with a few of the higher ranking men in Keamy’s little sydicate, but for now, the night belongs to just the two of them. He’d tossed the Russian the car keys, knowing his legs would be too long for the driver’s seat, though he doesn’t really give a shit who’s driving. He’s too relaxed after coming down from his adrenaline high.

He takes the Russian’s right hand between his, rubbing the rough, dry skin gently.

“You are a man who loves easily, but hardly ever falls in love.”

“How observant,” Mikhail says drily, not taking his eyes off the road.

Keamy continues massaging his hand. “Do you love me?”

“Omar is not saying it anymore, so you are hoping I will?”

“No. Just curious,” Keamy says honestly.

Mikhail nods his head towards the signs along the overpass. “Tell me which turn off you want me to use.”

Keamy places the Russian’s hand on his thigh, slouching in his seat and looking out the window at the night sky. He likes the weight and stillness of Mikhail’s hand on him, whether they’re in bed or on the couch or here in the car. It’s a steady, grounding, constant thing—a constant thing.

“Here,” Keamy tells him, nodding his head at the approaching offramp, threading his fingers through Mikhail’s. 

They’re still quiet and Keamy turns to watch the other man instead. The Russian is capable of driving with just one hand and it affords Keamy the chance to keep holding him. At the first red light they reach after getting onto the off ramp, Keamy feels mellow and unusually giving. 

“You want a blowjob?” Keamy offers, frowning slightly in thought.

This causes the Russian to glance over at him apprehensively before watching the traffic again. “You should have offered that when we were on the freeway. We’ll be at the restaurant shortly.”

“I could get you off in five minutes,” Keamy says, not arguing, still offering.

“I know you could. But I’d rather savour the moment.” The Russian’s voice is quiet, revealing nothing and everything.

“Gotcha.” 

Keamy files the information away for later and settles back into his seat. He likes the car, but it’s still a little too cramped for him, and as he considers the logistics of trying to maneuver into a position where he could suck the Russian off, he realises it would be uncomfortable and awkward at best. 

In the parking garage beside the restaurant, Mikhail pauses for a moment, not letting go of Keamy’s hand quite yet; he’s not looking directly at Keamy, reserved but now with an edge of shyness. Keamy considers reaching over to give the blowjob anyway, but then the Russian pulls him into a kiss instead and while Keamy isn’t into the passionate, romantic shit, he can appreciate the hunger and desire in the other man’s actions. Mikhail pulls him close and murmurs something against Keamy’s lips, catching Keamy’s bottom lip between his teeth and gently pulling. Keamy doesn’t fight the moment and threads his fingers through the Russian’s hair, fingernails lightly scratching his scalp; more kissing—hot and wet, the way Keamy’s mouth would have felt around the Russian, but he keeps that thought to himself.

Finally, the Russian pulls away and gives him a final chaste kiss on the cheek before checking his appearance in the rearview mirror and exiting the car. Keamy doesn’t give a shit how debauched he looks—he’s hungry, and getting tired and if his men don’t like the fact that his lips are red and swollen from the Russian, well, he’s more than happy to dump them into the ocean, too. 

 ***** 


	7. Chapter 7

Comăneci was known for her clean technique, innovative and difficult original skills, and her stoic, cool demeanor in competition. As she moves through her routine on the television, Mikhail silently narrates the American commentator’s dialogue by heart. 

Mikhail is sitting in his living room’s only armchair, a leather recliner he’d bought during a Christmas sale down in the Valley a few years back; his tv tray is beside it, an old kitchen towel placed across the top where he’d been cleaninghis gun. Keamy is sitting on a chair he’d pulled out from the kitchen, awaiting a phone call from one of his men staking out a massive shipment of cocaine they were planning on taking for themselves. The American had come over after arriving from a day trip to Mexico, arranging the purchase of said cocaine, requesting Mikhail’s involvement as his getaway driver. Mikhail isn’t terribly interested in the prospect, having already settled in for the night, but the cut of the sale that Keamy is offering him is tempting. 

So as he ties up his boots—very certain that he’ll need to act as fire power out on the docks—he continues watching one of the old VHS recording he has of Nadia Comăneci’s Olympic performance. He is in the process of hiding a knife sheath in his right boot when the American decides to be a smartass. 

“So why the tapes of Nadia Comăneci?” Keamy asks, looking at the screen. “Was she your dream girl growing up?”

“She and I were born one minute apart. When she made it to the Olympics, it was special.” He doesn’t expect the American to understand.

Keamy looks a little repulsed, as if this suddenly explains why Mikhail is willing to suck his cock. “So you looked up to a girl growing up?”

“I am not going to listen to you disrespecting her. She was one of the few idols Soviet children had.”

Keamy actually has the nerve to roll his eyes. “So she can do a backflip. What’s so great about that?”

“She was stoic. Very cool demeanor.”

“So like you, then.”

“Yes.” Mikhail nods his head to the screen as she flips through the air. “She was the first person to score a perfect ten. She was amazing.”

Keamy continues turning the phone over in his hands, staring at the screen, at Nadia raising her hands as she sticks the landing. 

“So you like people who are in control of themselves.”

Mikhail thinks it’s a stupid question. “Who wouldn’t?”

*****

And so at the restaurant, Keamy contemplates the thought of control, of stoic, cool demeanors. Omar thinks Keamy is being vain when he stands in the restaurant bathroom, staring at his face during boring, slow moments in the day, but what he doesn’t realise is that Keamy’s watching himself make expressions, studying different reactions to use in the future.

Keamythinks of the Russian’s words about Comăneci, which immediately sobers him. Despite what that fucking commie thinks of him, Keamy can be just as admirable, just as powerful looking. He puts his smile away and hardens the look in his eyes. He tilts his head left and right to study his expression and finally satisfied with the way it looks, leaves the bathroom.

Omar almost flinches when he sees the look on his face. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Keamy tells him serenely.

He continues this way throughout the day, alarming some of his men, freaking out someone who wants to get a loan from him, making Omar uncomfortable over all. The Russian regards him curiously, quiet interest, perhaps trying to discern the cause of his personality change, but rather than seek an explanation, he is simply quiet, stands a bit closer to him.

They sit together on Keamy’s couch that evening, watching a basketball game. They’ve been silent and Keamy finds the persona he’s adopted to be difficult to keep in check when he wants to make comments about how Jackson is coaching the Lakers. He places a hand on the back of the Russian’s neck and without any pressure, words, or hints otherwise, the Russian leans down of his own accord. Keamy isn’t exactly sure if that’s what his attention was in the first place by touching the Russian, but as his limp dick is pulled out of his pants, he supposes that it doesn’t really matter, that the Russian might have just read into the situation what he wanted. Then it becomes a game to see if he can keep his icy indifference focused on the television and not on the man’s face in his lap. 

He likes the respect the Look gets him, but at the same time, it’s not his authentic self and his own particular brand of charisma keeps people on their toes; his own personality is unsettling to people and he _knows_ that—they can’t figure out if he’s laid back or has a death wish. To everyone’s relief, he’s back to his old self the next day.

Because there are no rules against being an optimist and a villain, are there?

*****

Keamy’s money lending business relies on immigrants not being able to qualify for loans at the banks, which is good, because these are the same people who will not go to the police, but bad, because it requires translators. Thankfully, the Russian, with all his diplomatic ease, speaks nine fucking languages and that means Keamy has been able to expand who he brings into his fold.

And while he hates other people making suggestions as how to run his business, both Omar and Mikhail independently tell him that the Portuguese couple (who will be finishing off the last five thousand dollar installment of the money borrowed) should be spared any kind of last minute rate hike. Both men suspect that they’ll take out another loan shortly for their son’s liquor store and Omar recommends that a raise in interest can be tried then, which Keamy grudgingly agrees isn’t a bad idea.

At their restaurant, Keamy shows them his friendly smile, Mikhail at his side.

“Tell him that we’re even now. I have what I wanted and we’ll leave him alone from now on,” Keamy says to the Russian, even though he’s looking at the husband and wife. 

Mikhail translates and the couple smile in relief at both of them before the woman retrieves something from the serving counter, a foil baking dish that’s covered and hot. It’s handed over to Keamy, who immediately peels back the foil to see what’s inside. 

“Enchiladas—how did you know? Thank you very much. Muchos gracis.”

“They speak Portuguese, not Spanish.” Mikhail gave the couple a kind smile. “Agradeço-vos.”

“Same thing.”

Keamy, who is hungry, grabs a fork off one of the place settings at one of the unoccupied tables, smiling at the couple once more in an indication that he will be taking it with him as well. They smile and nod as though they can’t be happier at the thought, and he takes his leave with the Russian.

They’re in a really nice taupe Porche today and as they pull out onto the road, he starts eating. 

“This is the first time we’ve ever gotten lunch out of the deal,” he observes cheerfully. 

“The Portuguese believe in thanking everyone.”

“We’ll have to stop back some time soon to get dinner here. This is amazing.” He scoops up a large forkful of the food and then holds it out for the Russian to try. 

Mikhail doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but does lean over slightly to accept the bite, giving a small hum of agreement as he wipes a bit of sauce off the corner of his mouth with his thumb.Keamy continues stuffing his mouth with the food, half listening to the Russian, who’s explaining why on earth a Portuguese family is cooking Mexican food; there is roadwork being done and on a whim, Keamy redirects the Russian to take them out on the PCH instead. Mikhail raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t protest. 

The Russian eventually pulls over at one of the highway’s expanded shoulders, designed for tourists to take their pictures in front of the Pacific and they both get out. Keamy rests against the hood of the car, still eating the food out of the foil container. Occasionally, the Mikhail takes the fork from him so he can take some of the food for himself; Keamy considers that he should have demanded sodas for the two of them, but hindsight is twenty-twenty and there’s no reason they can’t stop at a Sonic drive-through on the way back. 

“What do you think of when you look at the ocean?” the Russian asks quietly.

Keamy is filled with a fleeting moment of unease, thinking of being cooped up aboard a ship, of finding an island.

“Fucking huge,” he finally says through a mouthful of food. 

The Russian nods, but there’s something else on his mind. Not wanting to know the answer, Keamy says nothing more, looking up at the clouds rather than the calm waters. 

*****

Keamy walks through the dense jungle, breathing in the earthy decay of leaves on the ground. He is steel and the cold survival that has been written into his species DNA for millennia; he hasn’t been out on his own since getting on this island and he wants to explore, sensing something out here that doesn’t settle comfortably within his well honed instincts. His Heckler & Koch MP5 is carried in his arms, safety on, but definitely ready for when he manages to find the threat he knows is out here in the silence. He sees a tattoo on his shoulder that seems very familiar, even though a few seconds ago he can’t ever remember having a tattoo. Not that it matters. It’s a trivial thing, a _human_ thing to be concerned with—he has no need for those things here. His canteen of water is empty and he wonders briefly if this was how people who went to Vietnam felt when they first saw the jungles. 

Ahead of him is a clearing that looks down on the island. He steps out and immediately sees he’s not alone. Two men, one in tan and one in black, sit on a fallen log, staring at him.

“Who the fuck are you?” Keamy’s tone isn’t aggressive—guarded, but puzzled.

The man in tan smiles at him, holding up a rounded bottle with a maroon liquid inside. “Would you like to join us? We’re sharing a bottle.”

The man in black scowls, his eyes boring holes into Keamy. “He shouldn’t join us.”

The man in tan gets a cockeyed smile. “Come now—he found us and it’s only fair.”

Amicably, Keamy sits down on a rock across from them, ignoring the man in black’s gaze lowering to look at the handgun attached to his thigh. 

“You with the scientists?” Keamy asks.

“Them? No. We’re our own division.” The man in tan is still smiling, as though he doesn’t need to be afraid of someone with a submachine gun in their hands. “I’m Jacob and this is my brother.”

“Martin.” Had he always introduced himself by his first name?

Jacob holds out the bottle to him. “Have some. It’s wonderful.”

The man in black is quick to protest. “But it’s ours.”

“He found us. He can have some,” Jacob assures, moving the bottle a little to emphasise that it really is okay that Keamy take it. 

So Keamy does and drinks just enough to quench his thirst and hands it back; it has a good flavour, though one he can’t quite name and the proof is sadly much lower than he’d hoped. 

“Not bad. Make it yourself?” he asks, his weapon relaxed across his thighs; he doesn’t remember having set it down.

“Yes.” Jacob doesn’t wipe the lip of the bottle. “So how do you enjoy our little island?”

“Not bad as far as islands go. Lived here long?” Keamy needs to know if these men have any intention of getting in his way—he’s pretty sure he can pop both them off without anyone being the wiser should they say the wrong thing. 

“Our whole lives.”

“Jacob,” the one in black warns.

Keamy thinks the man in black needs a little needling and he gives him a smirk. “Not allowed to talk to strangers?”

Jacob smiles. “Forgive him. He’s anxious to leave the island, but I keep holding him back. It makes him forget his manners.”

“I’m looking forward to leaving, too.”

“What if you die here?” The man in black asks. “You are a mercenary. You lead a dangerous life.”

Keamy’s skin prickles. Had he told them he was a mercenary? “I can take care of myself. Thanks for the concern.”

“But what if you die here? What if you never get off the island?”

“Then that’s how it will be. I’ll never leave.”

“You should want to leave. You should want to get back to your own home,” the man says lowly.

Keamy smirks and looks back at the other man. “This guy is a real charmer. I can see why you don’t want him to leave.”

Jacob’s mouth splits open into a large grin; it’s then that Keamy realises the blond had far too many teeth for a normal man to have and that his overall look has a slightly malicious undertone. Keamy wasn’t someone who scares easy, but the hair on the back of his neck is standing straight up, a warning sign that he has found himself in a bad situation and it is best if he leaves immediately while he still has a chance.

Jacob speaks and when he does, there is an odd hum to it, the sound of a hive swarming. “There’s nothing out there he could possibly want. The island gives us everything we need.”

The man in black has paled. “You should go. You should leave the island. Forget your job and just leave.”

Keamy decides that he didn’t like either man, that there is something not right about them and that both of them are far more dangerous than either are letting on. He considers for a moment that he could kill both of them right here and now, but he decides that he probably should find out who they’re aligned with.

“Thanks for the wine,” he says, hands gripping his weapon.

The men say nothing, Jacob smiling placidly and his brother watching him with an anxious look. Keamy finds himself wandering the jungle, his mind foggy and he forces himself to rest against a tree for a moment, trying to orient himself as his head swims in confusion. He closes his eyes as a hand steadies himself against a tree trunk, trying to decide if he’s suffering from some sort of heat exhaustion or dehydration. He feels as though he’s been walking around for hours, which doesn’t sound right—he’d only planned to be gone for less than two and with the way the sun is streaming through the trees, he’d easily estimate that he’s been out here for five. He feels faint and his mouth is parched.

He’d been warned that the Island was a dangerous place, that he should expect it to play tricks on his mind, that there were things out there in the shadows that would seem unbelievable. 

He hears voices and eyes opening, he wanders towards them. 

“I want him to remember us later.”

There is a man in black talking to a man in tan, both standing in a small clearing. 

“There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“But he’s involved now!” The man in black seems frustrated and Keamy watches in silence, trying to evaluate the situation. “Jacob! You allowed him to join us and now you deny him a chance to be saved?”

“Not everyone can be saved, brother. Only those who would want it.”

“But what if he doesn’t _know_ he wants to be saved!” The man in black holds out his hands, pleading. “You are willing to force him to stay in the Middle Worlds, never to reach his Golden Light? Ignorant of where he is and how he is to escape?”

The man in tan’s frown seems patronising. “Escape? You make the Middle Worlds sound like a punishment. It is a place for learning. All those who enter make themselves whole, through love—“

“And you can see just as well as I that he is no one who loves. Who has never seen a reason to love or _how_.” The man in black’s hands are now back at his sides, balled into fists. 

The man in tan doesn’t seem upset. “He will live in a cycle forever, forced to find happiness on his own. There’s really nothing we can do.”

The conversation is making Keamy’s skin crawl at this point because he can just tell they’re talking about him, and he steps out into the clearing, gun raised.

“What are you—“

Keamy sees a strange black smoke hovering a few feet off the ground, sparking and clicking as it swirls. Keamy watches it, speechless. Was this one of those mysterious projects the scientists here were working on? A weapon. The smoke begins to whisper soft and urgent, a warning in haste so that Keamy had to take a step towards it to get any sense of what it was saying.

“What? I can’t hear you?” he says, frowning. 

The whispering gets louder and he blinks his eyes as everything begins to darken. He realises that he’s in bed with Mikhail, who’s awake in the dark and staring at him.

“What?” he slurs.

“Are you all right?”

“What?” he repeats.

“You were talking in your sleep. You sounded upset.”

It seems odd to Keamy in this moment that the Russian’s face holds so much affection and concern towards him, a man who feels neither towards anyone. 

“I was dreaming…I was in a jungle and I had been following something…but I couldn’t remember what it was. I can’t remember what happened before it.” Keamy rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. 

“A nightmare?”

“No. Just a weird-ass dream.”

Keamy leans in so that their lips meet, wishing to guard himself from the unease he feels from the dream, needing to prove something by seeking comfort from another. Mikhail moves closer, moves on top of him to kiss and touch. While Keamy doesn’t often need physical reassurance, he takes it now; the Russian spares no attention, giving at a pace that doesn’t demand too much of Keamy’s tired body. Keamy participates for as long as he can, eventually finding the exercise far too exhausting; he offers a kiss along the inside of the Russian’s wrist—not because he thinks an apology is necessary, but to keep the peace between them. 

“I’m going back to sleep,” he mumbles and the Russian nods, moving off of him and returning to his side of the bed. 

It’s endlessly fascinating to Keamy that the Russian can’t help but show signs of affection to him, that beneath all the reserved and guarded emotions, Mikhail actually enjoys some semblance of normal intimacy: pressing soft kisses to his neck when they wake up, the gentle touches to soothe Keamy to sleep, the need to share a bed whenever they’re in town at the same time. 

Anytime Keamy does something another person might enjoy, it’s either calculated or an accident. He feels no guilt for this—it always serves in his best interests, either way. Mikhail is not an exception to this and Keamy knows that, doesn’t entertain the thought that Mikhail is going to get something genuine from him.

That’s not to say that Keamy wouldn’t be disappointed if Mikhail died.

The Russian’s arms are wrapped around him—not tight enough to restrict, just a constant presence. Keamy closes his eyes, steadies his breathing.

 _‘This is mine,’_ Keamy thinks as he starts to drift back to sleep. _‘And I don’t even have to work for it.’_

*****

Mikhail is not a religious man, so it surprises him when Martin calls him from a church, saying he’d like some company. He nearly doesn’t go, but then considers that the American might be there to cause trouble and he might be the only one to prevent it, so he goes, lingering in the back as he watches the bowed head of Martin Keamy in one of the rows of pews. 

Once he decides there are no immediate threats in the large building to either of them, he comes to sit beside Keamy, quiet and tense.

Keamy doesn’t look at him, but quietly says, “I’m thinking of stealing some of the candles off the altar.”

Mikhail says nothing, relaxing. It’s clear now from the American’s jokes indicate that they’re here on business, that there’s no religious pretense.

“It’s peaceful in here,” Mikhail comments.

There are people waiting patiently for confession and Keamy points discretely to a man wearing a windbreaker. “That’s him. The guy we need to get.”

Keamy pulls one of the bibles out of the pocket on the back of the pew and takes one of the little pencils set out for the comment cards and scribbles out, _‘Don’t do drugs, kids’_ and then puts the bible back. 

Mikhail smirks and leaning his head closer to the other man’s, murmurs, “In the city I grew up in, there were no pews to sit in so we stood for the entire service.”

“Oh my god, I would have died,” Keamy mutters, glancing over at him.

“Three hour services,” he murmurs, his mind drifting back to his childhood for just a moment; he’d hated every minute of it, knowing how long a walk back home awaited him, that his sister would want to know what’s he’d learned in their time there.

“Do you think we used to know one another in a past life?” Keamy asks him quite suddenly, interrupting him of his thoughts. 

Mikhail looks over to the other man.“What?”

“Omar was talking about karma and that it comes back to bite you in the next life. Then I was thinking about who I might have known in a past life.” Keamy seems to be very sincere about the matter.

Mikhail looks the American over. “Do you believe in past lives? Or karma?”

“No. Not really. It’s just an interesting thought.” Keamy glances back over at the man they’re watching before saying, “So?”

“So what?” Mikhail asks, not understanding the point of all this.

“Do you think we used to know one another in a past life?”

“I don’t know.” Mikhail looks past Keamy. “He’s getting up.”

Keamy watches and waits, coiled energy that needs to be spent; Mikhail will follow his lead and patiently observes. Then with a small nudge, they both walk calmly to the front of the church down the outside of the rows of pews they’d occupied and Keamy gestures for the two of them to slip through a side door.

It’s a small room that has storage shelves full of various religious paraphernalia used for church services and mass, a closet for choir robes, And a door in the back that will probably take them out to the back parking lot, where Mikhail is assuming the man is parked. Keamy hasn’t shut the door all the way, watching the man through the sliver of space left open; Mikhail scans the room, looking for resources.

There is a large plastic spice container with a hand written label that says, ‘Blessed Ashes’, something to be used on Ash Wednesday, no doubt. For some reason unknown to him, the sight of the ash container puts him at ease and with his free hand he takes it from the shelf, looking at the powdered grey. His thumb runs along the lid and pops it open, pausing for just a moment before shaking out the ashes in a circle around the two of them.

Martin does a double take when he sees what’s happening. “What the _fuck_ are you doing?”

Mikhail is equally perplexed by his own actions. “I don’t know.”

“Well, fucking stop it!” the American hisses and then grabs him by the hand, jerking him out of the protective circle and towards the door at the back.

The bottle of ash falls to the floor, spilling the rest of its contents across the carpet. Mikhail can’t help but feel some sort of horror within him that bad things will happen as a result of this neglect.

*****

Keamy’s mind drifts to thoughts of the night before, when the Russian had been fucking him and he’d keep gasping in Keamy’s ear, _‘I love you, I love you, I love you’_ , only he’d been saying it in Russian, so maybe he’d really been saying something else. Keamy hadn’t been brave enough to ask him to translate.

He keeps replaying the words over and over in his mind—the memory is triggering something that nags at the back of his mind, something he’s supposed to do or feel—but what was it? And why was it important? 

While he normally hates people in his space, once or twice a year he allows a handful of his better lackeys to come over and watch heavily advertised pay-per-view boxing matches; he likes it both because beer is brought over and so that he can engage in counterintelligence of his men—he’s sussed out weaker members before in gatherings like these and he’s more than willing to use it to his advantage. 

“Hey! Are you fucking watching?” Omar says when he doesn’t cheer as the speculated favourite is knocked out cold. 

“What? Yes! Fuck you! I need another beer…” Keamy gets up and leaves the living room for the kitchen, pulling out his phone as he goes. 

The Russian answers after the second ring.

“Martin?”

Keamy shivers at the sound of his given name rolling off the other man’s tongue. “Why’d you leave me alone with these idiots?”

“Everything okay?”

He considers lying for a moment just to get Mikhail over here, but in the end says, “Yes. Everything’s okay.” He listens to the sound of cheering from the living room. “Just boring.”

He listens to the Russian breathing and he realises that he could get hard at this point.

“What are you wearing right now?” he asks, his voice a bit lower. 

“I beg your pardon?”

He considers rubbing himself through the front of his slacks. “What are you wearing?”

There is a pause and then Mikhail asks, “Are you _joking_?”

“No! Just tell me what you have on.” He imagines the Russian is dressed in that olive coloured suit that always makes Keamy think of fatigues. “I just want to know, okay?”

“I am wearing my trousers and undershirt. I haven’t bothered to change out of my clothes yet.” The Russian sounds bored of the matter. 

“I wish you were here.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah. I’d make all these fuckers leave, then I’d have you suck me off while I watch this match.” Actually, he really just wants the quiet company of the other man—whether or not he gets any action out of it is secondary.

“You are a romantic,” Mikhail says drily. 

Keamy gives a relieved laugh. He’s not that at all and both men know it.

“You don’t get the match at your place?” he asks, hopeful despite knowing the answer already.

“No.”

“Fuck.”

“When does it end?” The Russian sounds as though he’s drinking a bottle of beer. 

“I don’t know—an hour?”

“Then send everyone home once it is over and then I will come over. You will be able to replay it, yes?”

“Yes. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

“I will see you then.”

The line goes dead and Keamy stands against the counter, thinking of boring things such as the boiling temperature of water and the sound of the wind blowing through the Las Vegas strip to get himself back to a somewhat presentable state before returning to the living room. 

Later, the Russian very charitably gives him a blowjob as he rewatches the match.

*****

 


	8. Chapter 8

Keamy comes home with a white box that has a nice lid and passes it over to Mikhail, who is sharpening the blades of his knives, as well as the kitchen knives. 

“I have something for you. It’s your responsibility though,” he says.

“What—“

His words catch in his throat as he looks into the box and sees a small calico cat, hardly a year old. Its left back leg is missing. 

“Its name is Nadia,” Keamy tells him. “I don’t know why it’s missing a leg, though. It was the only one I could find on short notice.”

Mikhail raises an eyebrow, wondering if he’d accidentally indicated that he’d wanted a cat—he can’t remember.

“Short notice?” he asks, not understanding what the American meant. 

Keamy raises his eyebrows. “The date?”

Mikhail shakes his head, confused. 

Keamy doesn’t look hurt, but definitely a little disappointed. “Nothing.”

The kitten lets out a frustrated, attention seeking cry which draws Mikhail back to it. “Someone hurt her. This isn’t a normal injury.” He studies the missing leg. “But you’ve healed well, haven’t you, little girl?” As he pets the kitten, taking it out of the box, he looks back at Keamy, who is examining the knife blades. “I’ll take her to the veterinarian’s tomorrow. Get her vaccinated and dewormed.”

A rare look crosses the American’s face as he looks down at the animal. “You like it?”

“She’s a good find.” Mikhail smiles at him. “Thank you, Martin.”

Martin tenses slightly, but just as quickly eases as though he realises he isn’t in any danger. He tosses the box into the trash and goes to sit on the couch, turning on the television. Mikhail looks at the calendar in the kitchen, not seeing what the importance of the date is. 

*****

There is a strip club down in the Valley—Martin has an old associate who’s looking for an investor and he tells Mikhail that he’s genuinely considering buying in so that he has access. Strip clubs are the gift that keeps on giving—pools of money, drugs, blackmail, and all the exact sorts of people their kind of work relies on. Mikhail finds most strip clubs to be too loud and seedy to be worth his time; any time he’s wanted women in the past, he’s either gone to one of the nicer hotel bars in Hollywood under the pretenses that he’s a business man looking for a Los Angeles affair while he’s in town for the night—most women find his accent and manners charming. 

And as he looks over at Martin, he is surprised he’s not thought about women in a long time. 

Omar is staring at a few of the girls by the bar and Keamy waves him off. “Go find someone interesting.”

Omar leaves immediately and Mikhail sighs, already tired of being here. 

A small blonde woman comes over to him and he greets her with a polite, “Hello.”

Her eyes widen at his accent and in Russian, she replies, _“Hello!”_

“Have her give you a dance,” Keamy tells him and then in a slower, louder voice says to her, “Dance for my friend here.”

She motions to one of the tables and Mikhail does sit down. He’s still cautious about being here—he feels vulnerable to attacks due to all the distractions and he also has a suspicion that the other man can become jealous. 

Keamy sits on the opposite side of the table so he can watch from behind, making a few obscene gestures with enthusiasm. Mikhail chooses to ignore him.

_“You live here in LA?”_ the girl asks him in Russian to keep their conversation private.

_“When I am needed here.”_ He gives away no emotionsand maintains eye contact with her.

_“He your friend?”_ She nods her head back slightly to indicate the American.

Mikhail almost laughs. _“That’s a bit charitable.”_

She smiles pleasantly and makes a very pleasurable noise as she touches her breasts through the thin material of the bra she’s wearing. Mikhail isn’t very interested in the event—she’s faking any enthusiasm or emotion and he’d rather listen to Keamy negotiate his share of the club, his share of the violence that is needed to make money. She moves against his body and he impassively rests his hands on the arms of the chair, fully aware of the ‘no touching’ rule; if Keamy owns part of the club, will the rule still apply? Will he want that?

“Please take off your top for him,” Keamy asks loudly, his politeness almost mocking. 

“I have to go to a private booth for that,” she says, making no move to take off the bra.

Keamy rolls his eyes behind her. “Fine.”

She climbs off him and both he and Keamy stand, which causes her to pause. “Only one person at a time.”

“Actually, I have one of the VIP rooms booked,” Keamy says, his smile condescending, dangerous.

The girl looks to Mikhail, her instincts telling her to be uneasy at the prospect of two men all alone with her, but he assures her that she has nothing to worry about, his Russian too familiar for someone homesick. Mikhail thinks that’s a very foolish mistake for someone in her line of work to make.

She nods and leads them to the room that Keamy has booked for the night, giving them both a smile as though she can’t imagine a better way to spend her time than in their company. Alone in the new room, Mikhail seats himself across from Keamy, who is grinning at him like an idiot. The woman straddles Mikhail once more and he nearly demands to know why Keamy won’t take someone for himself, rather than subject him to this, but the question is fairly rhetorical.

_“He likes seeing you uncomfortable?”_ the woman asks after a few minutes.

_“He’s American—that’s all he knows how to want,”_ Mikhail says and they share a smile, happy to think of themselves as better for a moment.

“Too much talking, not enough tits. Let’s go,” Martin orders, no doubt irritated he can’t understand what they’re saying.

“Perhaps you’d like a few other girls dancing for you?” the woman suggests over her shoulder as she unhooks her bra.

But Keamy’s not falling for her distraction. “I want to see you. With him.”

Mikhail thinks of his older sister, of his mother; neither had done anything like this for money—to his knowledge—but times had always been tough and it had been something he’d feared, knowing that either women could be exploited at anytime simply because everyone was always hungry and cold. He wonders if this woman half his age had ever imagined she’d be in the land of opportunity, taking off her clothes to pay her bills. He isn’t prone to caring about the emotions of others, but tonight he can’t help but feel as though he is no better than all the shitty patrons of this place that they hope to take advantage of.

Keamy is watching them with a hunger; he looks powerful and arrogant, a king enjoying a performance. It makes Mikhail feel exploited and he looks away from the other man, staring at the hollow of the young woman’s throat. He is uncomfortable and she is polite enough to pretend not to see it; she murmurs in his ear for him to ignore their audience and just enjoy himself—he wishes it was simply a case of being self-conscious in front of another man. Now, if she was his, he would not be able to keep his hands off her, would want to enjoy her entirely. And now he considers if Martin wishes to see that of him, something that makes him almost shudder. 

“What else for an extra hundred?” Keamy is holding up fresh one hundred dollar bills, offering one out towards her. 

She looks at the money and asks hesitantly, “What would you like?”

“Suck his dick.” The American makes it sound like a dare.

“Martin, I came here as a courtesy to you. And the club doesn’t permit that,” Mikhail says drily, now feeling very out of control of the situation.

Martin opens his mouth to argue, but the door opens at that moment and Omar walks in with a very tall woman in light pink lingerie that stands out against her dark skin. The Russian woman looks very relieved that she’s no longer in here alone, even if security cameras have been discretely watching the entire time. 

“Fine. Dance for him. Both of you,” Keamy orders, pointing to Omar. 

Omar looks a bit startled, but then very happy as both women turn their attention to him. Keamy watches hawklike, a half smile on his lips and Mikhail considers that Keamy has always viewed sex about taking care of a need, something physical to get out of the way, a power exchange.

There is never foreplay between the two of them and rarely is it anything but fast and intense. Mikhail has never complained, because in truth he’s enjoyed it like that, needing their sex to be something that’s almost more about trying to see who can take the most than about anything emotional, but here in this strip club, Mikhail can see the ugly shadows of who Keamy really is. It’s always about power, always about pushing and Mikhail doesn’t want to be the one caught up in Martin’s whims.

After the night draws to an end, the Russian woman slips her name and number into his jacket pocket and in the car as they drive back to Keamy’s apartment, Mikhail shows it to him.

“Ivanka,” Mikhail states, holding up the paper for Martin to see.

Martin takes it from him, looking it over. “Oh, like ‘Trump’.”

Mikhail smirks and watches as the American slips the piece of paper into his jacket pocket.

“Going to have to keep an eye on you,” Keamy says in a tone that Mikhail would almost consider playful.

Mikhail smiles, knowing that Keamy will never have to worry about that.

*****

Keamy has a housekeeper because all that time in the military has made him appreciate cleanliness and order, but there’s no way in _fuck_ that he’ll spend any of his time doing it. The woman he’s hired is part of the cleaning company that his apartment building contracts with, so he’s extra cautious not to bring work home with him lest she narc on him to the managers; but then, he’s never been stupid about protecting himself and his interests and everything is rented under a different name and he pays her strictly in cash, crisp fifty dollar bills at the end of each month which he knows she likes. And he simply has to trust that she likes the money enough to keep her mouth shut should she see anything.

He offers to loan her out to Mikhail if he should ever want his little shit hole apartment cleaned, but the Russian is amusingly paranoid about letting anyone into his space and pretty cheap, saying it is stupid to have someone do a job for him that he can easily do himself. Keamy can appreciate that life philosophy, but damn, it’s nice to come home to something that someone else cleaned!

*****

Mikhail reaches the restaurant, a little sore in the knees this morning from a fall he’d taken off a loading dock two nights before while chasing someone. He wants to be at his apartment resting, but there is business to take care of and he hopes to get information from Keamy about a small time arms dealer that he’s considering working with. It’s not a very interesting job, but could be of use to him, so long as he goes in with the upper hand.

Keamy seems to be in the process of leaving and his men mill around uncomfortably, none of them willing to make eye contact with Mikhail. There is a small cut on Keamy’s cheek where a fist has connected with it, slight swelling that Mikhail notices immediately as a fighter. But before he can say anything, Keamy smiles at him in that empty way and says,

“Good, you’re here.” He pulls his car keys out of his pocket. “Listen, Omar’s going to need some help with this—“ he points to a body wrapped in a drop cloth by his feet, “—so go with him, will you? I don’t need him fucking this up.”

Omar glares at Keamy, while Mikhail asks, “Where are you going?”

Keamy isn’t waiting and as he exits the restaurant, he calls out, “Business meeting!” 

Mikhail doesn’t argue about the decision, though his desire to simply walk out of the building and leave is strong. Keamy is perhaps too comfortable ordering him around, as though there’s nothing in Mikhail’s life that is more important than his needs being served, as though all Mikhail does is bend over for him. But there is always a chance for something useful to come out of this situation and Mikhail is willing to put his own work on hold to get a payoff. 

Mikhail doesn’t particularly like transporting bodies as the risk of getting caught with one is just too high, but it is a necessary evil of the job and he’s simply glad this one isn’t rotting. He and Omar are both skilled enough that they don’t need to speak as they get the body into the trunk of his car, pushing aside the tool box in the back and making room for the shovels they’ll need to bring along. 

They drive for about thirty minutes before Mikhail breaks the silence.“I thought he was one of Keamy’s men,” Mikhail comments, wanting to know if this person was a snitch, a disappointment, or an undercover.

“No, it seems only _you_ are.”

Mikhail raises an eyebrow, but keeps his mouth shut; it takes only seconds for Omar to offer an explanation without any prompting. 

“He was running his fucking mouth off about you. Making jokes. Keamy just dragged him into the freezer. I don’t know what he did to him and I’d rather not know.”

“What were the jokes?” Mikhail asks; he’s not offended that he was the subject of the man’s mockery, but he is curious. 

“How do you know when a homo walks into the room? He has a Russian accent,” Omar says flatly.

Mikhail isn’t impressed or offended and considers that Martin has made a very powerful statement about his personal life and where Mikhail stands within the organisation’s hierarchy; it’s either a gesture of devotion to Mikhail or self preservation for his own reputation. 

“Even when Martin loves, it is a weapon,” Mikhail finally settles on saying and Omar smirks.

“No shit.” He seems to have relaxed and points towards the north. “So there’s a place out in Lancaster we usually take our trash.”

“Good, good,” Mikhail says, just for something to say. 

It takes Omar another few minutes before he voices what’s on his mind. “Why the fuck would you mess with him? He’s a psycho, and I say that with respect, but he’s not someone I’d ever want near my dick.”

Mikhail doesn’t expect Omar to understand—Martin Keamy is a genuinely dangerous man, but that’s what Mikhail craves, what he thrives on. He loves knowing that Martin will not hesitate to get what he needs, that he equally expects for Mikhail to get what he needs as well. There is no weakness, little softness in the man, and for all of Mikhail’s own loner mentality, being with Martin makes him feel _alive_.

“Martin is…” Mikhail thinks of how Martin has integrated him into his world, simply brought him into his personal sphere and Mikhail has never had the desire to leave. “He needs someone. He is complicated.”

He considers that it sounds as though he thinks Martin needs someone to tame him—what he really means is that Martin needs someone to run wild with him. And he wants to be that person.

“Still…” Omar turns his eyes back to the windshield. “I don’t think you’re faggot. Keamy neither.”

Omar is running at the mouth and Mikhail tunes him out somewhat as he thinks of the kitten Martin brought for him, a gesture that wasn’t necessary. He could have just as easily brought him something expensive or collectible, but instead he gave him a living creature, something Martin certainly didn’t consider valuable. While there was something undeniably dark and unsettling about a man of Martin’s nature, there were still very human instincts and understandings within him that surfaced from time to time and Mikhail simply happened to be lucky enough to see them when they did.

He wonders if Martin’s men see their boss as a one dimensional villain, a character that only exists when they see him. Are they aware that he has emotions that—while border on extremes—are very real? Do they know he has many of their own thoughts, only processed in a completely different manner? Omar perhaps understands slightly, but then again, maybe he doesn’t. Mikhail doesn’t see him as a sociopath; there are emotions within Martin—they’re simply muted. 

As they arrive at the isolated desert location on the outside of Lancaster, Mikhail notices as single cat hair he managed to miss with the lint roller this morning; holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he feels a sudden pang of desire to be with the American right now, just to be close. He allows the cat hair to float away on the breeze as he takes up a shovel and begins digging a hole.

The work is labourous but he and Omar are efficient and get an acceptable sized grave prepared, even if it is a pain in the ass to do it in a suit. 

“Probably wouldn’t have been so sensitive if this idiot hadn’t made an anniversary joke,” Omar says, slightly out of breath as they roll the body into the hole.

Anniversary joke? “What was it?”

“He just said something about cats being substitutes for kids and if you ever came home with one, it meant you wanted to be married or some shit.” Omar begins to shovel dirt back into the hole and Mikhail joins him. “Like Keamy would ever put up with an animal.” 

“Just a stereotype,” Mikhail murmurs.

Mikhail thinks of the calendar and of the kitten and sees how the joke had hit too close to the mark, that Keamy had been insulted by the gofers unfortunately timed comment. And now he understands the kitten; it had been an anniversary gift, the last thing he’d ever expected. To be fair, they haven’t celebrated birthdays or other holidays, so why would he have ever expected an unofficial anniversary to be important? 

He comes home with a Heckler & Koch MP5 from an underground arms dealer he knows and leaves it on Keamy’s side of the bed. Keamy seems very pleased and spends the evening cleaning it on the coffee table while Mikhail lets the kitten sleep in his lap. He’s got the date stored away in his mind so that next year, he’ll be prepared.

*****

On occasion, Keamy gets Mikhail drunk just to be in complete control of another human being. 

One night they’re sitting in Keamy’s apartment together on the couch; Keamy keeps pouring Mikhail more wine—cheap and red, stolen from the restaurant—and he lounges around in his old service uniform from the Marines, too lazy to take it off. The uniform still fits it perfectly, part of a scam he was running earlier and he puts his cover back on his head.

Mikhail is drunk and he stares at Keamy intently. “You aren’t supposed to wear your cover inside.”

Keamy scowls at him. “I can do whatever I want with this uniform.”

Mikhail’s eyes travel up and down his body. “You look very nice in it.”

“Are you hitting on me?”

“No. Just thought you should know.”

Mikhail rambles on and on about something—part of it in some other language—and Keamy just listens, biding his time; he’s always wanted to see how far he could push the Russian, just another one of his experiments to keep life interesting. 

Mikhail is incredibly drunk. “Why won’t you say it?”

Keamy raised an eyebrow. “Say what?”

“That you love me?”

Oh, this was definitely interesting. “Do you love me?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Mikhail leans across the couch to get closer to him. “Do you love me?”

Keamy lets out a laugh. “What is this? High school? Are you going to ask me to prom next?”

Mikhail looks hopeful. “Just say it.”

“No.”

The Russian begins caressing his neck, murmuring into his ear. “Please.”

“No.”

“Please, Martin.”

“No.” 

“Why won’t you?”

Keamy squirms out of the Russian’s hold and stands up, straightening out his uniform before defiantly putting on his cap again. He forces himself to keep a straight face and in his most authoritative voice, barks out, “Are you a faggot, Mikhail Bakunin?”

Mikhail drunkly stumbles off the couch, rolling his eyes and putting his arms around Keamy’s neck. “Yes, fine, I am. Just say you love me.”

Keamy, feeling especially cruel, gives him a sly smile, allowing the Russian to hang on him. “No. I love only me. No one else.”

“Why do you kiss me, then?” Mikhail asks and Keamy laughs.

“Because I can.”

“But I love you.”

“I don’t care. I’ve lived without it this long—I won’t die without it now.”

“I would give you anything you asked,” Mikhail tells him sincerely.

“I can _get_ anything I want,” Keamy points out.

“You have my loyalty, my heart—what more can it take?”

“I’m not Dolores Haze—my affections can’t be bought.” Mikhail looks confused and Keamy barks out a laugh. “It’s a Lolita reference! Some Russian pervert wrote it! You should know that.”

This seems to offend Mikhail. “I’m not looking to buy your love. I just want to know what it will take for you to show it to me.”

“I don’t have to give it to you, Mikhail. I’m just as happy alone,” he says in all honesty. 

“But you must. By now you must…”

“You _idiot_ ,” Keamy scolds and that seems to be the breaking point. 

The Russian steps back from Keamy and begins to march towards the front door.

“Don’t leave!” Keamy shouts, unable to keep back his laughter. 

Mikhail tries to fumble with the lock on the front door and Keamy grabs him by the upper arm, which causes the Russian to spin around and glare at him.

“You fucking _sociopath_!” Mikhail hisses.

“Shut the hell up.” Keamy is suddenly very angry about the situation, no longer finding it funny. “Love is for morons. I don’t even understand why you’d waste your time.”

Mikhail spits in his face. As the spittle runs down the side of Keamy’s nose, the Russian snarls, “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

Tired of the words coming out of Mikhail’s mouth, he shoves the other man away, storming off to the bedroom, hoping the other man will follow. And he does. The Russian is right behind him, drunkenly attempting to fight him, to force him against the wall to reason with him. He clocks the Russian hard in the jaw and with the moment of borrowed time, takes his service weapon off the nightstand where he’d left it. He rounds on Mikhail, holding the gun out. 

“Get on your knees,” he orders.

Mikhail pants, but does as he’s told. Keamy steps forward and presses the gun to Mikhail’s temple.

“Say it.”

“I love you,” Mikhail says firmly, his pupils dilated. 

“Say it again,” Keamy challenges.

Mikhail licks his lips. “I love you.”

He takes the safety off, knowing Mikhail can see it. He gives him the eerie smile that makes most people realise exactly what kind of danger they’re in. “Do I love you?”

Mikhail—whose breath stinks of cheap wine—looks so fucking earnest as he answers. “I want you to.”

Keamy continues smiling, but nods his approval, setting the gun on the end of thebed, safety back on. He gestures for Mikhail to get closer and the man takes the hint, moving forward on his knees, hands reaching for the front of the uniform trousers, fingers removing a polished belt buckle… Keamy’s hand finds the back of the Russian’s head, sweaty palm on soft nearly-black hair as he begins thrusting into a needy mouth. As he closes his eyes, sinking into the warm, wet abyss of pleasure that only Mikhail seems to bring, he mutters,

“Some love is not meant to be.”

In the morning it is apparent the Russian doesn’t remember anything from the night before and for some reason, Keamy’s stomach feels tight. Maybe he’d been hoping to exploit the vulnerability. 

Of course, he could spin it a thousand different ways if the Russian had remembered: a game, a faulty memory, a dream, a request—but Mikhail says nothing and Keamy simply tucks the memory away as an important source of information about emotion fragility and stability.

*****

 


	9. Chapter 9

The Russian has a few strange tattoos on him and one morning when they’re in the kitchen—the Russian standing shirtless at the stove—Keamy studies the amateur ink.

“You should get these touched up. It looks like they were done by a ten year old,” he says casually, baiting him.

“They're prison tattoos,” Mikhail replies, sounding unimpressed with the attempted insult. “They have meanings.”

“What does 'mir' mean?” Keamy smirks. “Name of your prison bitch?”

The Russian grinds pepper over the bacon frying in the pan. “It means 'peace' in Russian, but in prison it's an acronym for 'menya ispravit rastrel'.”

“Hold on, let me figure it out.” He searches through his short list of Russian vocabulary quickly, trying to piece together anything that might resemble what was said, but in the end he draws a blank and shrugs. “I got nothing.”

Mikhail gives a slight nod, a token for his honesty. “ _‘Execution will reform me’_.”

“Is that what it would take to change you? Death?” Keamy asks. “Say it again.”

“ _Menya ispravit rastrel_.” The Russian’s words curl around his native words like an oath. “There was a man a few cells down from me with a wind-up shaver, a pen, a sharpened guitar string…I'd bring him the soles of other inmates' shoes and while someone acted as a look-out, we'd burn them and mix the ashes with piss to make ink. Then he'd tattoo me.”

So, it wasn’t some candyass poke-and-stick job—Keamy is very impressed and as he leans his elbows on the island’s marble top, curiosity having the better of him. 

“What's the ship mean?” That particular piece is in the centre of the Russian’s back.

“That I live a roaming life and that I can be trusted in an escape.”

“And the roses?”

“I went to prison twice as a child.” Mikhail turns slightly to point at the dagger on his ribs. “The second time I killed someone.”

“Who did you kill?” Keamy can only hope that there is good story.

“There was an older boy who kept breaking into my older sister's house, stealing her food and money. One afternoon I waited for him in the woods and I slit his throat.” The Russian gives a small shrug. 

Keamy is chilled in the most wonderful way at the thought of the other man’s younger self being such a scary little fucker. 

“You didn't get a life sentence?”

Mikhail uses metal tongs to turn the pieces of bacon over in the pan. “The police caught me with the radio and silver pieces he'd had on him at the time. They thought I was the thief.” He points the tongs—hot with bacon grease—to the candles on his shoulders. “And these candles mean that I'm still dangerous enough to kill again.” 

Keamy considers what he knows about the Russian military and questions, “How did you end up in the military with a criminal record?”

“My past could be overlooked in favour of my… _talents_.” Mikhail gives him an unexpected, mischievous smile. 

Keamy watches the Russian continue cooking their breakfast; he frowns slightly, wondering how this new information fits into his world. Up until now, Mikhail had kept that information to himself, though he’d offered it the moment Keamy asked. Keamy wonders just how deep the other man’s past is and what he would uncover if he kept prying. 

In the shower, when Keamy is able to corner him, he studies them closer. The sight of the faded and worn black ink on Mikhail’s skin is simply fascinating now that he knows what it means; for the most part, he’s simply ignored it as he’d seen his share of shitty tattoos in his life and was indifferent to the matter for the most part. Despite the fact that the tattoos are on Mikhail’s body, Keamy considers them his, his secrets now. He is thankful that no one else can see them because they are powerful and others aren’t deserving.

With some reverence—and dare he say affection?—he touches that tattoos with his fingers and his lips, hoping to absorb some its power for himself. Mikhail’s dick is hard—not from the touching, but because Keamy knows what power the tattoos have. They cut the shower short and stumble back to the bed—the Russian wants to be on his back and do none of the work, so Keamy bears over him, the other man’s knees up over his shoulders as he sets a relentless pace. Mikhail is giving harsh commands in Russian, grabbing Keamy hard by the hair until he cries out. 

Keamy manages to bite the rose tattoo hard, leaving the blossoms a swollen red.

*****

Keamy and Omar are leaning over the railing of the yacht they’d taken out from Ojai to the point they’re at now, which is far out of anyone’s sight. A client had needed a boat and person put on the bottom of the ocean for insurance money; sinking the boat and making it look like an accident wasn’t hard, but having to keep the wife alive so that she’d drown in sea water had been a bit tricky. They’d knocked her out, but it really wasn’t a guarantee—if she came back up, they’ll shoot her and hope it looks like she encountered cartel. He’s got an automatic rifle in one hand and a beer in the other; normally he doesn’t permit drinking on the job, but he makes the exception because they’re all out at sea and boats plus beer are meant to go together. He does make it very fucking clear to his men that all the empty cans, bottles, and cigarette butts have to stay on this boat because there _will_ be an investigation at some point and the last thing he needs is some moron to leave the chance for evidence to be found.

“That’s better than sex,” Keamy declares as they watch the air bubbles from the sinking boat rising to the surface of the water. 

“Better than your kind anyway.”

Omar takes the bottle from Keamy’s hands and right before it touches Omar’s lips, Keamy says,

“Careful—you might catch my _fag_ germs.”

Omar rolls his eyes. “You can’t catch it.” He takes a long drink from the bottle and when he hands it back, he adds, “And you aren’t gay.”

Keamy takes the bottle and says casually, “I don’t know, Omar. The way I was fucking the Russian in the ass last night seems pretty gay to me.”

Omar shakes his head. “You just like him too much.”

“Jealous?”

Omar smirks, his sense of humour a little better now that he’s got alcohol in him.  

Keamy considers what he said, though. Liking someone too much. And maybe he does. Maybe he relies on him and appreciates the silence better when Mikhail is at his side. He doesn’t know what that means.

“You want the rest?” Omar asks, gesturing with the bottle.

Keamy shakes his head. If he didn’t respect Omar’s opinion, he’d have shot him and tossed him overboard as well. But now he has shit to mull over, to weigh on the carefully balanced scales of his life.

After an hour, one of his men calls out from the cabin, “Ready to head back?”

Stupid fucker just likes getting to race the boat around on the ocean, like this is some kind of fun, family outing,

Keamy looks at the ocean surface again. That bitch is _dead_.

“Sure.”

*****

“So where are we going again?” Keamy asks as the red mustang that they’re borrowing-before-being-sold-across-the-border weaves through traffic.

“A restaurant that serves traditional Russian food. You will enjoy it,” the Russian says, both hands gripping the steering wheel tightly as he pushes the speed limit by twenty.

Keamy looks at himself in the sunshade’s mirror. Sometimes he mimics the way others talk not for the sake of making someone else angry, but simply to hear his voice using that accent.

“A restaurant that serves traditional Russian food—you will enjoy it. A restaurant that serves traditional Russian food—you will enjoy it.” He drops the accent and shifts his eyes over to Mikhail. “So what—they’re going to make me some borsht?”

“Is that is the only Russian food you could think of?” the Russian asks with contempt. “They will cook more than that. It is nearing Passover and there are special dishes for the occasion.”

“I don’t give a shit if they’re special—I just want to know if it will be good.”

Someone else might have been insulted or hurt by their culture’s food being so easily discarded by him intentionally, but Mikhail always knows how to push right back.

“Do I seem like the type to spend two hours in a car with a _fuck-up_ like you if the food isn’t good?”

“Fair enough,” Keamy says, thrown off by the name ‘fuck-up’; he’d never told anyone that his cousins used to call him that when they beat him up in the backyard, and while it’s not something that he even really thinks about anymore, there is still a small sharpness at the memory of the name. 

The Russian smiles slightly, unaware of Keamy’s inner conflict. “Do something with that restless mouth of yours and earn your lunch.”

Keamy barks out a laugh—the Russian is not someone who ever tries to talk in a sexy way, and rarely ever says anything suggestive, preferring a direct approach. But Keamy likes the way the request was posed and he starts to lean over, unzipping the front of the Russian’s pants. 

“If we crash because you’re about to jizz in my mouth—“

“If we crash because I’m about to come, we will both be killed on impact and you will not have to live with the shame of being found in the middle of a blowjob,” the Russian says, very amused. 

Keamy can find the whimsy and joy in that—he lives second by second and if he dies, well, hopefully he takes a few motherfuckers out with him. 

“And you’d better swallow. I don’t want a mess,” the Russian adds as Keamy leans over the centre console. 

“Well, then don’t gag me. I hate that,” Keamy says hotly, the flare of pain from being called a fuck-up still burning in the centre of his chest suddenly.

The Russian gives a small hum of agreement and keeps his hands on the steering wheel the entire time. 

*****

Three years in, and Mikhail still keeps his own flat despite spending every night with Keamy. He likes knowing that he has a place of his own to retreat to when the American goes out of town, that he’s not obligated to be there. At the moment, he relaxing in his recliner, watching the Nadia tapes, mostly because the American doesn’t have a VCR player and he feels as though it would be almost sacrilege to take them into the home of someone who doesn’t appreciate her. There’s a hockey game on later, one of the few sporting events he truly enjoys watching and Keamy had suggested they order out their dinner and get drunk while watching the last quarter, which Mikhail thinks is an excellent suggestion.

His cellphone rings—showing Keamy’s number—and he answers. “What do you need?”

Keamy’s voice sounds a little strained. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Watching tv. Why?”

“Where?”

Mikhail frowns. “At my flat. Why?”

“I'm bleeding.”

This causes him to pause. “What happened?”

“Some fucking idiot tried to cut my throat—“

At this, Mikhail gets up from the chair fast, letting the nearly empty beer bottle tip over on the tv tray. 

“Where are you?” he asks firmly, already feeling for the car keys in his pocket. 

“I'm at the apartment—hold on.” Mikhail strains to hear who Keamy is talking to and after a few seconds of Mikhail holding his breath, Keamy returns. “I'll be over in ten minutes. Get a first aid kit out or something.”

The call ends and while he wants to call him back and demand that he stay on the line so that he doesn’t have to worry about him losing consciousness, he knows better than to become a distraction, and instead finds the name of the discrete doctor they sometimes call upon to remove bullets from their bodies and sets out the first aid kit he’s been neglent at refilling. He shouts a few curses at himself, hoping that he will not be responsible for Keamy bleeding out because of his stupidity. 

Keamy arrives eleven very stress-filled minutes later with Omar in tow. There is blood soaked through the dusty orange shirt he’d put on this morning, a hideous piece of clothing that Mikhail had very vocally critised during breakfast—this wasn’t how Mikhail had wanted it to see its end.

Keamy is holding a crumpled t-shirt between his neck and collarbone, and something miserable fills Mikhail’s chest. It appears his neck hasn’t really been hit too hard by whatever blade had been used and Mikhail wants to shout in protest when he watches Keamy pull the t-shirt away to reveal a wound that goes from the bottom of his neck—narrowly missing the jugular—across his collarbone, nearly reaching the breast bone.

“I thought your neck—“

Keamy shakes his head and while he doesn’t look upset, his is slightly more pallid than usual. “No, but he definitely hit bone.”

Mikhail doesn’t hesitate as he manouvers Keamy to sit down in his recliner, wanting him comfortable as soon as possible before he evaluates the wound. As he studies the injury, Omar shifts behind them.

“What the hell are you watching?” Omar asks, sounding bewildered.

“Nadia Comăneci,” Mikhail says, noting that the collarbone is definitely visible now that he’s started cleaning the area with rubbing alcohol. 

Omar bursts out laughing. “What the fuck?”

“He's got crush on her,” Keamy says, grinning ear to ear.

“Hold still,” Mikhail orders, not the least bit embarrassed. “What were you cut with?”

“A box cutter. Motherfucker thought he could pull a fast one on me.”

Mikhail does his best not look like an infuriated lover as he glares at Omar. “Where were you?”

Omar returns the cold look. “I _got_ him.”

“Should have seen him! Short little Omar, getting him with a metal pipe. Fucking funny...” Keamy frowns as he watches Mikhail threads a sterilised needle. “Is that dental floss?”

“It's sterile and all I have. I can do temporary stitches with this tonight and something better in the morning...?” Mikhail wants to apologise for not being better prepared, but knows the American would lose all respect for him. 

“I'll smell minty fresh...” Keamy teases. 

“Unscented.”

“Nadia is the greatest athlete the world has ever seen,” Keamy says loudly in an exaggerated Russian accent, obviously trying to imitate him. “She is brilliant and beautiful and a genius! Just look at how she executes her moves!”

“You’ll stay here tonight,” Mikhail insists quietly as he sews the gash closed with as much care as he can.

“You’re not trying to take advantage of me, are you?” the other man asks and Mikhail glares at him, not finding this anything to joke about.

“What’s so great about her?” Omar continues, which distracts Martin further from being any sort of help in his own medical procedure. “What’s the point of watching this?”

“She's his _soul_ mate,” Martin sneers.

Mikhail nearly says _'Well, I'd rather wake up to her than your sorry face every morning,’_ but that would be a stupid thing to say in front of Omar. And a lie.

“She a hot piece of ass,” Omar agrees.

“She is a child, you pig,” Mikhail snaps in disgust, not glancing back to the other man. 

This sends Martin into gales of laughter and Mikhail pins him down with a broad hand to his chest, not worrying about being gentle anymore. Omar starts making jokes about the use of someone who can do the splits, Keamy continues his impressions of Mikhail in the terrible Russian accent, and Mikhail tries to get more information about the fight from both of them.

Omar stays until one in the morning, after the trio drinks through Mikhail’s rượu đế—South Vietnamese moonshine—Omar complaining about the sharp smell, Martin complaining about the sharp taste, and Mikhail complaining that it’s not strong enough to compare to homemade vodka. It takes only a few minutes for them to call a cab for Omar and then Mikhail is alone with the American. Pulling him in for a deep and lonely kiss causes Keamy to whimper from the pain of having his cut touched, but the American doesn’t try to get away from him. Martin is obviously drunker than he ought to be and he stumbles off the couch, falling heavily to his knees and moving between Mikhail’s legs. 

“You want me to suck your dick while you watch this?” He’s smirking and fumbling with his trousers, his fingers clumsily pulling at Mikhail’s fly.

Mikhail frowns. “I watch this not because I want to fuck her, but because I respect her.”

“Fine, call it what you want, but I can make this much more enjoyable.”

Mikhail frowns. “Your neck—“

“If I start tearing stitches out, I’ll stop.”

“I’d rather be on the bed,” Mikhail says, hoping to lure him into the bedroom to get him to sleep.

Mikhail turns off the television and allows Keamy to lead them back to Mikhail’s bedroom. Mikhail kisses him for a few minutes, not aroused in the slightest as the the other man gropes at him. He finally pulls away and convinces the other man to wait on the bed while he goes to brush his teeth and undress. It buys him seven minutes and by the time Mikhail gets back to the bed, Keamy has fallen into a deep sleep; Mikhail undresses and lies down on the mattress next to him. The room feels hot comparatively and he places his hand on the small of the American’s back, rubbing the knuckle of his index finger on that part of Martin’s spine; it’s not affection—just need to keep the other man asleep and comfortable. He can’t understand how Martin’s lying on his stomach, on his injury, but he doesn’t try to make him do anything else—if this is what Keamy wants, then that’s what best. Trying to make the American do something other than what he wants is a bad idea, even if it’s for his own good.

Mikhail kisses his shoulder and closes his eyes. 

*****


	10. Chapter 10

“Who did you have before me?” Keamy asks one morning as they lie in bed together. 

He’s not usually one for pillow talk, so it catches Mikhail off guard. “What?”

Keamy scratches his chest. “Who did you come home to?”

“No one.” Mikhail adds after a second long pause, “My Nadia tapes.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“What about you?”

“No one. I don’t do well with people.” Keamy yawns and stretches his limbs. “Well, I can only pretend for so long. Most people are scared of the real me. The rest of them are too smart to stay around.”

Mikhail doesn’t sound particularly impressed. “So you think I’m stupid for staying here?”

“No.” Keamy has never thought of the Russian as stupid. “No. Just strange.” 

They are quiet and then Mikhail takes a turn at asking a question. “On your lease, what did you put your occupation down as?”

Keamy smiles. “Gym owner.”

“I am fairly certain that this building does not allow animals,” Mikhail informs him in that snotty little know-it-all voice he uses on occasion, when he won’t simply say what he wants. 

“Fuck ‘em,” Keamy says, knowing that if the housekeeper has narced now, she won’t ever. 

While he lifts weights, Keamy can hear the kitten playing in the kitchen with one of the jingling plastic balls; he keeps stepping on the stupid little toys and they keep breaking, which is driving him nuts. The kitten cries for attention from he both of them and he flinches when it rubs against his ankles as he lies on the weight bench. Mikhail shushes the animal as he acts as Keamy’s spotter and Keamy finds that it grinds on his nerves that he’s not the sole focus of the Russian’s attention. 

In the shower, Keamy closes his eyes and allows Mikhail to wash him off; the hands and hot water feel good on his muscles and when Mikhail stands close, sucking on the pulse of his neck, Keamy feels himself relax for the first time in days. Keamy has never understood why anyone would waste their time on the girlfriend experience; with Mikhail, he doesn’t have anyone nagging him to stay safe or to consider showing compassion—Mikhail offers assistance and is often the one beating someone over to drive a point home. Keamy’s hands come up to rest at the back of the Russian’s neck, holding him there and soon enough, the other man’s soapy hand comes to fist their cocks together slowly. 

Time seems to come to crawl and he is quiet, trying to dwell and live within every second as fully as possible. The Russian doesn’t seem to mind his silence and aside from their heavy breathing, there is only the sound of the shower water. Keamy turns his head and kisses Mikhail’s temple, his mind blank.

He wonders if death will be this peaceful.

*****

“Get it! Get it!” Keamy cheers one morning on the couch while Mikhail cooks breakfast in the kitchen.

“What is happening?” The Russian calls out.

“Nadia found a mouse!” 

Keamy can hear the Russian turn off the stove to join them in the living room where they watch the little three legged cat batter the small rodent. 

“It’s dead now.”

Mikhail frowns. “Why is there a mouse in here?” 

The Russian doesn’t wait for an answer, instead starts wandering through the apartment, looking for holes in the wall that have allowed the offending rodent into their home. Keamy doesn’t really give a shit, so long as the little cat kills them.

“Fucking eat it, Nadia! Christ!” he shouts when the kitten whines for treats, the dead mouse entirely forgotten. “No, I’m not going to feed you until you eat it, you stupid shit. Get a house and suddenly you’ve lost all your survival instincts.”

“Throw it in the trash!” Mikhail yells out in annoyance. 

“Fucking lucky you’re a gift or I’d be throwing you out, too, worthless little shit,” he says quietly to the cat.

The cat stares at him, apparently not impressed with his outburst and begins cleaning her face as he picks the mangled mouse up by the tail and carries it over to the trash can in the kitchen. 

*****

Mikhail’s body still feels relatively warm, due to the heat rising off the forest floor from decaying leaves. The jungle is a giant compost pile, he muses—just a bunch of shit and death that feed the plants. A shadow passes over him and he considers that it might be a bird flying overhead, then there is clicking and he forces his eye open to see what it is—

A man dressed in black is knelt over him, studying him the way a child might study a dead insect it finds on the ground.

“Are you going to be all right?” the man asks him.

“I don’t know. Am I?” Mikhail asks in return, wondering if this man is a medic—he doesn’t seem frightened.

The man’s head tilts to the side slightly. “That’s not what I asked. Are you going to be all right?”

Mikhail’s not scared of death.

“I’ll be all right,” he says calmly, smiling at the man.

The man smiles in return, nodding his head slowly. “That’s right. You _will_ be all right.”

He helps Mikhail to his feet, which Mikhail finds surprising considering how injured he is.

“Are you bothering our guest?” another voice chimes out.

Both he and the man in black turn, and then the man in black tenses, releasing his hold Mikhail’s arm. “Jacob.”

Mikhail is reverent of the man standing in front of him, knowing instantly that this is the man Bea has spoken of. “You’re Jacob.”

The man smiles. “Yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

Mikhail has forgotten all pain, all possibility of death. “I was told I can ask you one question.”

“You just did.” At Mikhail’s horrified expression, he smiles a bit broader and declares,  “You may ask one more.”

Before Mikhail can even consider what to ask, the man in black says, “They’re coming back. If you want them to think you’re dead, you should probably leave.”

Mikhail can in fact hear the sound of movement in the forest; he curses and then apologises to Jacob for using that kind of language in front of him.

“Run,” both men say in unison.

Mikhail wakes up to Keamy turning over in his sleep, a question on the tip of his tongue and as he lies there, staring at the ceiling, he tries to remember what was so important that it could be the only question he _needed_ to ask. Keamy rolls over again, curling close and Mikhail smiles sleepily, allowing himself to lose himself in dreamless sleep. 

*****

Keamy is shocked and not happy when Mikhail comes back to the apartment one evening with another cat, which he presents to the kitten, rather than to Keamy. 

“I have a sister for you, Nadia.”

Keamy wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Another one?”

“She needs company. Now she’ll stay out of your way.”

Keamy will admit that there is logic to that. “Where did you find her? Behind the restaurant?”

“No. I bought her from a breeder. She was the last in her litter.” The Russian kneels down and pets the cats as they investigate one another. “You two will get along.”

Keamy can’t understand why anyone would _pay_ money for a cat. “What’s this one’s name?”

“Inna.”

“ _Eeeena_?” he says, dragging the name out mockingly.

Mikhail doesn’t look at him, simply continues petting the new cat as the first one sniffs at it. “It is my sister’s name.”

Keamy finds that he doesn’t know how to reply to that, for a moment wonders if Mikhail would ever leave him for his sister should she ever need him. There is a sudden selfishness in him that hopes she’s dead, hopes he never has to hear about her again. He hates the small cat simply for having the name of someone Mikhail considers important.

The house keeper is smitten with the new kitten and mentions to Keamy that she’s always wanted cats. He doesn’t care, wishes he could dump them off on her, but they mean something to Mikhail and Keamy can’t jeprodise that, so he just ignores them and keeps a lint roller by the front door to keep himself free of cat fur.

***** 

Omar is on the phone with someone with Mikhail returns from a trip to San Francisco to take care of someone’s brother-in-law. The men in the restaurant are playing cards, but at the moment everyone is staring at Omar, who’s started to raise his voice with whomever he’s talking to.

“Hold on, hold on—who’s there?”

Mikhail watches quietly; Keamy hasn’t noticed him at this point, finishing up the second pudding cup on the prep island he’s sitting at, but now his eyes are on his second in command. The call ends after a few minutes and Omar’s promise to ‘talk to Keamy’.

“You know that Portuguese restaurant down in the Valley? The owners’ kid just called and said there’s someone down there, trying to start shit. Trying to collect money.”

Keamy’s eyes narrow slightly and he stands from prep island, wiping his mouth of crumbs with his knuckles. Mikhail feels adrenaline run through his system as he watches Keamy making a quick decision. There is obviously a strategy already formed in his mind and he begins to dictate what he needs as he tosses the empty pudding cups at the sink, one hitting the rim and falling on the floor.

“Omar, get Jay and Kevin with you, then those two brothers—pull them off the stakeout. Meet us at the restaurant.” He turns around and nods his head at Mikhail—it seems he knew he was there the entire time. “Mikhail,” Keamy greets as he nods his head for them to go back out to the parking lot. 

Mikhail is tired from driving, but doesn’t protest as the other man tosses him the car keys to the BMW Keamy is using this week. He considers driving for the other man to be one of the few niceties in their relationship; Mikhail considers being the driver as a dominant act, but then perhaps Keamy and his men see the driver as work for someone lower ranking. The radio and air conditioner both come on full blast. The car is hot, so he leaves the AC as is, and after a commercial on the radio ends, he can hear what the music is: classic American rock and roll, Mikhail’s favourite; he turns the music down to something tolerable, something that doesn’t distract and Keamy takes his hand, placing it on his thigh. 

“How was your trip?”

“Fresno is still the same shit stain it’s always been.”

“Those cats missed you.”

“Good, considering they’re mine.” Mikhail glances over at him.  “And how were you?”

“I survived,” Keamy says with a smirk, as though partially insulted that Mikhail would ask.

Mikhail smiles, taking a side street to cut across town. “I watched a good film last night. Groundhog Day.”

Keamy straightens his posture a bit, a tell Mikhail has learned means that he is uncomfortable. “That movie always creeped me out. It seemed too much like being in Hell to me.”

Mikhail is surprised at this admission and adds his own opinion on the matter. “Purgatory. You are allowed to atone, so long as you understand that is what you must do.”

“So in purgatory you’re just expected to have some great insight about how you’ve been a shit person and you need to be better, and voila! You’re saved?” Keamy asks, sounding disgusted. 

“I didn’t say it was easy.”

“Sounds like a bunch of bullshit designed to keep kids in line.” He plays with the air vents on the dash before asking. “Do you believe in it?”

“No.” Mikhail had never found any of it to be logical. “I am not a religious or spiritual man.”

“Good. Just making sure.” Keamy looks out the window for a few minutes before adding, “Do you think that it would be the worst day of your life, or the day you’ve done the worst thing to someone else? Wouldn’t there be a chance a person would break before they could figure out what they need to do? Because that’s rigging a game.”

Mikhail raises an eyebrow. “Are you concerned you will have to relive something you’d rather not?”

“No.” A pause and then, “I don’t know.”

Martin had never struck him as someone interested in religion, and Mikhail is curious about this new side he’s seeing. “You believe in purgatory?”

“I don’t know.”

Mikhail can feel the other man’s embarrassment and says firmly, “I am no saint, Martin. I will be there with you and I’m certain that between the two of us, we could sort it out.”

“Well, the second we start getting déjà vu, we’ll know we’re there.” Martin smiles to him, but the look has more resolve and a surprising amount of fear than any of the usual amusement that the American shows.

And Mikhail can’t help but think that he’s had this conversation a thousand times before.

*****


	11. Chapter 11

Mikhail comes back to the apartment one afternoon after not finding him at the restaurant, having been directed by Omar to find him there. He hears movement in the living room and taking the stack off mail off the kitchen countertop to look through, walks in.

He pauses when he sees the blonde stripper he’d encountered at the club almost two years previous.  

 _“Hello, Mr Mikhail,”_ she greets cheerfully, half dressed and he quicklyaverts his eyes.

 _“Hello.”_ He suddenly feels like a stranger in the apartment he shares. _“Where is Mr Keamy?”_

She points back towards the bedroom. _“He’s in the shower.”_

 _“Are you moving in?”_ he asks, feigning curiosity as he nods towards her overnight bag open on the couch. 

There is nothing they’ve stated explicitly that forbids either of them from fucking anyone else, but then, Mikhail had simply assumed it wasn’t necessary. 

 _“No. Mr Keamy is letting me stay here while he takes care of my boyfriend. I’m trading in a favour.”_ Her expression is innocent. _“Did you need something?”_

Mikhail wants to know what this ‘favour’ is. _“I just had to give him a message.”_

Keamy emerges from the bedroom, naked and damp, a towel wrapped around his waist, a hand towel ruffling through his wet hair. He spots Mikhail and pauses, that stupid grin appearing. 

“It’s like a United Nations in here,” he jokes, but the words fall flat in Mikhail’s ears. “What’s up?”

“I was bringing you a message,” he says calmly, not allowing himself to look affected.

Martin nods his head into the bedroom and shuts the door behind them; Mikhail looks at the bed, wanting some sort of sign that someone else was fucking the American in it. The bed has been made by the housekeeper and it’s not to say that the two didn’t just have sex on the couch or in the kitchen or—

“Well, what’s the message?” Keamy asks, still drying his hair.

Mikhail’s rage is quiet and still, leaving him standing there to stare at Keamy, who makes a face at him in confusion.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Mikhail still says nothing, feeling hateful. 

“Oh, is this about her? Ivanka needed a place to stay while I have Omar dump her boyfriend out at sea.” A look of realisation crosses the American’s face, amused. “We didn’t fuck.” 

But Mikhail sees nothing funny about the situation.

Keamy frowns and takes a step forward. “We didn’t fuck. She’s a stripper. She doesn’t care if someone’s there while she’s putting on clothes.”

“Why was her hair like that?” Mikhail has the force the words out.

Keamy’s stupid smile is back. “It was windy. We rode in a convertible.”

Mikhail hates that the American always has a reason ready on the tip of his tongue and breaks eye contact, eyeing the bed again. “There’s a group of Vietnamese that need to unload a few cars quickly and were wondering if you were interested. I can vouch for them.”

“Mikhail, nothing happened. It got a little bloody—I needed to wash up, she needed to get out of her clothes.” The American scowls. “Fuck you. I don’t need to explain myself to you.” And when Mikhail still says nothing, the American physically takes his face and turns him back to look at him. “ _We didn’t fuck_. She’s just cashing in a favour I owe.” Keamy seems genuinely taken aback at the lack of trust. “Why can’t you believe that?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t doubt you.” Mikhail’s apology doesn’t sound very sincere to himself. 

“No, you shouldn’t. She’ll stay here tonight and we’ll go back to your place. She can watch the cats.” He moves to stand between Mikhail and the door. “Okay?”

“Yes.” When Martin refuses to move, raising an eyebrow, Mikhail concedes entirely. “Yes, I agree with you!”

From the living room, Ivanka calls out, “Hey, Mr Keamy, may I please have one of the beers in the fridge?”

“Sure!” Martin yells back, staring at Mikhail.

Martin suddenly grabs him by the upper arm; the smile is still on his face, but his tone becomes quieter and more composed. “You’re going make it up to me tonight, Mikhail.”

Mikhail nods once as the hair on the back of his neck stands up and the American’s smile widens as he releases his hold.

“Tell your asian friends that I’d be happy to take the cars off their hands. Negotiate.”

“I will.” He nods again, now that the natural order of their world has fallen back into place. 

Martin drops the towel from around his waist and pads into the bathroom. “She’s keeping track of Mike for me.”

Mikhail frowns taking a step towards the bathroom doorway so he can watch Martin as he speaks. “Who is Mike?”

“The other owner of the strip club. I’m gonna pop him. But I need to know his routine first, make it look like a robbery by one of the bouncers.” Martin smiles at him. “You’re a paranoid, jealous fuck, Mikhail. I’ve only had sex with a girl once and that was prom night.”

Mikhail doesn’t know how to respond to that: he’s pleased to be wrong about the situation, but at the same time he considers that had he not come over when he did, he would never have known about Ivanka being here, that Martin wouldn’t have thought to tell him. He thinks that Omar was well aware of how this situation would play out, what it would look like to Mikhail—that maybe he actually hoped Martin was fucking the stripper and Mikhail would find out.

Tired of feeling like a fool, he turns around and leaves. 

*****

Keamy has missed threatening people for money, usually sending others to do it for him, so he takes a rare break with Omar to stretch his legs and break a couple kneecaps. There is a man who’s borrowed a very large sum of cash from Keamy and has been late in paying it back in full, so he and his right hand man drive out to the suburbs to collect on it. 

The man is tied down to a dining room chair and gagged before Keamy takes the tire iron to his left knee. Omar stands to the side, smiling and Keamy instructs him to find a bag or something they can use to take their ‘interest’. Removing the gag, Keamy very carefully explains to the crying man that he _really_ needs his money back, that it affects other people trying to get loans from him because when money is tied up, nothing can happen. He doesn’t really wait for a response, wandering through the kitchen and dining room to take anything that strikes his fancy. 

A few expensive knives from the kitchen, a vase from the dining room, and Omar returns with a large duffle bag that has jewellery from upstairs. Keamy tosses in the knives and vase into the bag, and then makes his way into the adjoining room, ignoring the man trying to reason with him. He takes an urn off the mantle in the living room and drops it to the floor, where it shatters and the ashes fly everywhere; Omar mutters something to himself in Arabic and Keamy regrets getting that shit all over his pant legs. He takes a few expensive looking decorations off the bookshelves, not really interested in them, but figuring it will make a point. 

Omar locates a bunch of video games and puts those in the bag as well, shrugging. “When the kid comes over on the weekend, thought he might like something new.”

Keamy nods; Omar’s son is a little shit that deserved to have some sense slapped into him, but then he spots a cat sitting on the back of a sofa and decides there’s nothing wrong with shopping for someone else. He stalks over to it and purposefully grabs it by the scruff of its neck, dropping it into the duffle bag with the other things he’d taken from the house.

“Please! He’s my daughter’s!” the man pleads. 

“We’ll be taking him,” Keamy says, rolling his eyes. 

Omar laughs and grabs a bag of hockey equipment on the way out. Once they’re out of the driveway, he asks Keamy, “What are we going to do to the cat?”

“What do you mean?”

“What are we going to do to it?”

“We’re going to take it back to my place.” The cat is making a racket in the backseat, trying to fight its way out of the bag. “Listen to that little asshole—he’s a fighter.” Keamy hopes this cat kicks the shit out of snotty little Nadia and timid Inna.

Omar frowns. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“What are Russian names? Good ones—not like the predicable ‘Boris’ or ‘Sergei’.” Those are all he can think of at the moment and he’s certain there are better ones.

Omar’s voice is distant. “Ilya.”

“You’re so lazy. That’s from ‘The Man From UNCLE’.” Keamy actually likes the name a lot. “But it’ll do for now.”

“Why are you keeping him?” Omar asks, raising his voice over the yowling.

“Trophy. He’s an expensive cat. And he’s got personality.” He shrugs. “Besides, that asshole is probably going to be scared for the next few weeks that we’re going to mail back parts of Ilya to his daughter—should keep him on edge for a while until he pays up.” After a moment he adds, “Mikhail will like him.”

Omar makes a face. “We should just kill it and send it back bit by bit, like you said.”

“Omar, hasn’t anyone ever told you that animal cruelty shows a lack of self discipline?” he scoffs. “Besides, the Russian loves pussies.”

“Yes, I’m sure he does,” Omar murmurs.

“You callin’ me a pussy, Omar?” As much as Keamy likes Omar, he’s starting to see how practical it would be to have the Russian replace him. 

Omar is quiet, his attention turned to the houses they’re passing by. “I think you should see someone else.”

“Like who? Ivanka?” Keamy knows that Omar has been fucking her.

“She’s interesting.” Omar shrugs, as though he’s trying to convince himself that that’s the truth.

“Stick to thinking about your own dick and not what I’m doing with mine. Got it?” Keamy says cooly. 

“Got it.” 

*****

Keamy falls off a ladder one afternoon and suffers a seizure. 

Well, it really isn’t that simple.

It had started when he was changing the lightbulb in the storage room at the restaurant—he’d just been sitting around waiting for a status update at the port and after fumbling around in the dark trying to find a box of Oreos he’d stashed on the shelves, he finds a ladder and a lightbulb, determined to get the junk food he’s craving. 

He blinks a bit and sees that he’s on his back, that Omar is kneeling over him with a look of concern on his face. Keamy struggles to sit up, unsure what has happened, even though it’s pretty fucking obvious.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Omar asks as he helps Keamy stand.

“What?”

“You were screaming that we were all dead and that an island had killed us.”

More talk of the island.

“I don’t know. Fuck. My head.” It’s pounding with every beat of his heart.

“I think you need to go to the hospital.” Omar’s hand tightens on his shoulder. “I’m serious. I think you’re really hurt.”

Keamy wants to be immature about the concern, but his head is throbbing and he figures at the least, a doctor will prescribe him something strong for the pain, tell him why he’s dreaming of the Island. 

“Fine.”

Omar looks relieved there won’t be an argument, though his mouth is still pulled in a tight line. “I’m driving.”

Keamy refuses to go to the shitty nearby hospital—he’d seen the news and was aware they’d recently had a MERS outbreak, and there was no way he was going to subject himself to flesh eating viruses because of a stupid headache.

“What was I saying about the island?” he asks as they drive across town and he finds the insurance card under a fake name that he uses.

“I don’t know—something about it caught people and didn’t let them go. That if you die there, you’re stuck there.”

“People allow themselves to get caught in their own cycles, futures of their own making,” Keamy says quietly. 

“What? Are you some philosophical genius now? Quoting shit that the Russian tells you?” Omar sneers. 

“The Russian never talks about this kind of shit—it’s just something you know. That you’re born knowing. _Idiot_.”

But now that Keamy thinks about it, he swears he’s heard this somewhere before, that it was told to him and he’s supposed to remember it, like it will solve all the shit that he’s had going through his mind.

At the hospital, the doctor recommends he get his head scanned and as the technicians set up the room, Keamy does finally receive the call about the port update—all good; he puts on a hospital gown and tosses his phone to Omar to monitor. From behind the glass walls as the doctor has him lie down in the machine, he sees Omar making a call on his phone, so he watches—Keamy can read lips which is just as useful as nine different languages, he thinks.

 _“Mikhail, it’s Omar—that’s why I’m calling you. We’re at the hospital.”_ Pause. _“No, he hit his head. The doctor’s giving him a brain scan at the moment.”_ Pause. _“No, you don’t need to come down—he’s okay.”_ Pause. _“Yes, I’ll call you if he asks for you.”_

Keamy grins at that. 

The giant machine hums and whirs, which suddenly causes the adrenaline to shoot through his body again. His mind is filled with the thoughts of a jungle, black smoke, and smiling mouthes with too many teeth. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tries to convince himself he’s not in any danger. But the thoughts are persistent and he begins to hyperventilate as strange dead men in lab coats peer at him from behind large tree roots and tropical ground foliage. 

“No!” he finally screams, terrified to be alone with the threat of the Island.

The massive MRI machine is shut off, and Omar and the doctor come rushing in.

“I’m claustrophobic,” he lies. “I can’t do this. I can’t be in here alone.”

“If you’re not uncomfortable with it, perhaps Mr Azizi wouldn’t mind staying with you during the examination?” she suggests.

Omar’s face pales and he turns to Keamy. “I can call—“

“Just do it,” he hisses.

Omar has to change into surgical scrubs because his clothes contain metal and he looks very embarrassed, won’t make eye contact when he comes into the room. Keamy can’t find the words he wants to say to humiliate him, just wants to be anywhere else. As the machine starts up again, Keamy closes his eyes and imagines that Mikhail is on the Island, an eyepatch over his right eye. He finds Omar’s hand and squeezes it, fearful, _dreading_.

In the end, the doctor concludes that he hadn’t had a seizure, but a panicked reaction from the fall and a concussion.

“Will you be at home alone?” she asks as she makes notes in his patient file. 

“No. I have a partner.” The words leave Keamy’s mouth before he realises it and he grins suddenly at the absurdity of it all. “He takes care of the cats.”

The doctor gives him a kind smile, as though he’s a child. “Good. I want you to take it easy. It is also important that you have someone with you, to monitor you.” She taps her pen to her clipboard. “Is there any way I can talk to your partner to give him the information?”

Keamy points at Omar. “Just tell Omar. He won’t let him forget.”

Omar is highly defensive in the car ride to his apartment, trying to reaffirm his heterosexuality obnoxiously, until Keamy can’t take another second of it.  

“Shut. Up. _Fuck!_ ” Keamy shouts, eyes closed and rubbing his throbbing temples.

Omar falls silent and the tension for the rest of the car ride is thick and oppressive. Keamy’s headache is awful and he wonders for a moment if this is a hemorrhage in his brain, and then decides that he really doesn’t care because if he dies, at least he won’t have to deal with the fucking pain anymore. Omar walks him back up to his apartment and Keamy shuts the door on him as he asks if he should call the Russian. Keamy sits on the couch with the curtains drawn, wishing the fucking Advil he’d taken would start working. His eyes are closed and the apartment is quiet, only the sound of the fridge’s ice maker making noise every thirty minutes. The cats are asleep in their beds and he forces himself to breathe in and out, trying to ignore the sounds of the ocean and the rocking motion of being on a ship.

Mikhail gets back to the apartment a few hours later, far earlier than he’s supposed to be back, but Keamy can’t find it in himself to complain. Being along in the apartment has freaked him out and with the Russian here, he hopes the irrational creeping sensation of something waiting to consume him will disappear.

Mikhail walks into the living room quietly, holding a box of pizza and regarding Keamy with concern. “I had business in Bakersfield,” he says, as though apologising to Keamy for not being there sooner. He sets the box of pizza down on the coffee table. “Would you like me to get you a paper towel?”

Keamy nods, opening up the box. He’s not particularly hungry, but the doctor had recommended he eat something when he got home and he’s willing to listen to doctor’s orders. It’s pepperoni and sausage with olives, the way he always orders it and he’s grateful that he doesn’t have to find something to complain about. The slice he takes is greasy, but good and he’s half way through it by the time the Russian returns with paper plates, paper towels, and chili flakes. They eat in silence and Keamy ignores the cautious looks Mikhail keeps giving him. 

“Are you tired?” Mikhail asks once Keamy abandons the second slice back into the box, sounding like a field medic as apposed to some simpering girlfriend.

“A little,” he admits, wiping his hands and then mouth clean.

Mikhail nods and stands to remove the pizza from the living room. “Get some rest.”

Mikhail sits beside him, cleaning the backup Glock he complains isn’t heavy enough to be used regularly. Keamy turns on ESPN, keeping the volume low because all he really wants is background noise. He hasn’t felt this shitty in ages, not since he fell off the swing set when he was seven and his mom sent him to live with his aunt in Las Vegas for being ‘defective’. 

“I need a bottle of water,” Keamy says aloud after some time.

“Just stay there. I’ll get it for you.”

Keamy has had enough of everyone handling him with kid gloves. “Don’t _baby_ me, Mikhail.”

“I’m not.” Mikhail’s grip on his arm is too tight and Keamy finds himself forced back down onto the couch, the Russian’s face suddenly cool. “ _I_ will get it for you.”

“Fine. Get it fucking quick,” he snaps as the Russian lets him go.

After Mikhail walks out, Keamy takes the television remote and throws it at Ilya, who jumps up from his bed under the window and arches his back. Instead of hissing, the noise that comes out of the cat’s mouth is clicking and snapping like the smoke cloud made in his hallucinations. The hair raises on the back of Keamy’s neck and he stares as the cat runs out of the living room.

“I’m losing my mind,” he hisses through his teeth, running his hands through his hair.

His head still aches on the back where he’d hit the floor and when Mikhail returns with the bottle of water from the fridge, Keamy drinks it down as though he was parched. Maybe he was. Everything seems to be less important than dwelling on the hallucinations. Hours later, Keamy doesn’t have the energy to pretend that he wants to stay up as late as he usually does and admits that he’s ready to go to bed and sleep everything about this day away. He lingers in the shower, thankful that the Russian didn’t try to join him and his mind spins a kaleidoscope of colours and sounds that make him seriously question if the humidity is from the shower’s steam or from the rotting forest floor of the jungle.

The Fear of The Island, he decides. What this bizarre phobia stems from, he isn’t sure. And for that matter, he doesn’t actually care. He just wants it to stop.

As he stares at the back of Mikhail’s head when they’re in bed, he wishes they were locked in a vault, wide awake and armed. Everything feels too vulnerable, which he’s not accustomed to—he feels as though there is something waiting for him and he doesn’t know how to stop it. 

“Do you dream of the Island, too?” His voice isn’t a whisper, but it’s quiet.

There is no response from the other man and Keamy realises that after a lifetime of keeping people at a distance from him, he feels very, very alone. 

*****

Mikhail does hear Martin whispering to him about the Island that night, but he remains still, feigning sleep so he doesn’t have to answer the question. He dreams of the Island and there are times when he’s awake that he dreams of it, too. 

Sometimes as he drives from one job to the next, he can smell the jungle, hear the sound of birds chirping and singing overhead. He feels as though he’s in a trance—his heart begins to pound and his palms sweat around the knives he holds, around the guns, feels foam pouring out of his mouth. Everything feels oppressive and distressing, an ominous sense that something is about to happen—just out of sight, just where he can’t predict and prevent it. 

He feels sorry for Martin—he hates the dreams and memories, too. But he doesn’t want to talk about it, because then it would all be real, and a shared hallucination isn’t something he’s interested in. Life in LA has started to feel more and more like a dream he might not be able to wake himself from and that’s far more frightening than anything else he can consider.

*****

 

 


End file.
